Furuta and teeth

hysyartmaskstudio:

checkerboard-sky:

Seeing
Furuta lose a tooth in the last chapter was rather interesting for me. I’ve had
many dreams about falling teeth, so I’ve read a bit about its dream meaning and
have some thoughts about the situation and its interpretation. Of course, as my
base of information is dream interpretation, this might not have much real
value.  Rambling, however, hurts no one,
so here I go. ^_^

Overall,
teeth are related to our smile, one of our most prominent features. When you
see someone the mouth always draws attention, as a source of both verbal and
non-verbal information. It’s pretty normal to show someone a “cordial smile”
when you greet them, for example. Things like a smile being truthful or not is
also something vastly used in order to get an understanding of a person, and
decide if we like them or not, even unconsciously.

Teeth and
smiles are related to our image, the way the world sees us, and depending on it
and how we “manipulate it” we’ll get different reactions. Being in control of
your smile, forcing a believable fake smile can really help in many situations.
So teeth are also related to a sense of security, control and self-confidence.
It’s part of our daily mask. In Furuta’s case in particular, it feels like his (fake)
smiles are an important part of his characterisation. We can even see it in Ishida’s
drawing.

But if we
lose a tooth, our image is “cracked”, we are perceived differently. The mouth
draws so much attention that it’s hard not to notice. So losing a tooth means
losing control, a crumbling self-confidence. We no longer can rely in our mask
like we used to, and our smile falters.

One of the
most relevant points in Furuta’s case, however, is probably-

 – that he
shoves the tooth back almost immediately. This gives me the feeling of “there’s
a problem and I know it, but I’ll try to act as if there wasn’t”. Furuta is a
character that makes an effort to put on masks depending on the situation, but
has showed in many times that he definitely doesn’t have as much control on the
situation as he’d like. So, under his mask, he ignores his crumbling self-image
and acts as if nothing has happened. He puts on another mask of confidence and
keeps going.

I remember
dreams about losing teeth also had something to do with worries related to age,
either fear of growing old (which I don’t really think applies in this case) or
a feeling of inability like that of a child. In some way, losing a tooth is a
regression to childhood, a time of low agency when we are mostly guided by
others. This could be interpreted again as Furuta knowing how much he lacks
control in his own life but still deciding to ignore it, desperately holding
onto a fake self-image.

This is
already out of dream interpretation, but having a “bad mouth”, a tooth not truly
rooted, could be linked to him not being a truthful character. The same way
what’s in his mouth isn’t genuine, his words are false and manipulative.

Lastly, a
bit more of my own somewhat ramble-y thoughts. Furuta has been shown holding an
apple, which is a symbol of knowledge. 

If we interpreted eating the apple as
accepting the knowledge, we can say that Furuta has the apple, but can’t eat
it. Because if he does, his loose tooth will get stuck in it, risking again the
loss of his self-image. He can’t take the knowledge, because then everything he
struggles to preserve, despite being based in lies, might disappear.

Anyway,
that was all I had in mind! As always, I apologize for any mistakes in my
English or poorly worded sentences! The last part was mostly my somewhat baseless speculation but I’d be happy if anyone could get anything out of this.

Thanks for reading, and please do not hesitate
to message me if you’d like to add something or anything! ^^ 

This is a wonderful post.

First of all, your English is fine. 

Second of all, this analysis is super on point for his character. The fact that you got that all out of dream analysis is really interesting for me. Tokyo Ghoul makes heavy reference to both the works of Jung and Freud, which is where the foundational work of most dream analysis comes from. 

From Freud we get the psychosexual. In your analysis that’d be losing teeth being regression into childhood. We know Furuta’s childhood is very informative of why he does what he does, given that flashback of him in the Sunlit Garden with Rize. Freud would also suggest that it might imply an oral fixation, which also fits Furuta’s character. In Freudian thought an oral fixation developed from lack of close contact with parents early on – particularly the mother. People with an oral fixation, according to this theory (which is mostly considered BS in the field of psychology) tend to be either anxious and dependent, or controlling and manipulative. (Which kind of would be our two hanged men of Kaneki and Furuta. Huh…)

Furuta has also been associated with the Freudian through his issues with his father.

From Jung, you get symbolism and the idea of universal experiences and the idea of collective meaning in the subconscious.

Jung also gives us the reason I think dream analysis is probably exactly the correct way to interpret this scene, though I never would have thought to do it myself – so lots of kudos for the idea.

Furuta is associated with the Moon Tarot, a card already very tied to the unconscious and the subconscious, and thus the world of dreams. He is further tied to the crayfish on the card, which represents the sort of liminal states of awareness, crawling out from the subconscious to the conscious. Like dreams.

He’s also a shadow archetype, a character type that is very heavily tied to the subconscious fear and desires of the character they foil, in this case, Kaneki. It comes from another Jungian concept – the Shadow, or shadow self, which is all the parts of a person that they repress or refuse to identify as themselves. Thus Furuta’s love of violence, his desire to dominate, and his apparent selfishness.

As for the apple – it’s notably inverted, color-wise, [x] another clue to his role as Kaneki’s inverse.

Which is all to say that he is a character already very heavily linked to dreams, so your choice to use dream analysis to understand his motives was a really brilliant move and seems to have worked out wonderfully. All those observations line up really perfectly with his character.

I wonder if there is any information to glean applying this same idea to his character and actions in the past. It’s definitely something to keep in mind for the future.