i wasn’t going to respond at first but your tags got me feeling some kind of way and it was about arima but also about the garden children I’m still in pain.
This chapter has me crying about so many people.
I’ve just been thinking about the Washuu clan and the CCG and V and all their talk about order and peace. And they made quinques and gave the humans a fighting chance. Talk of a balance.
Pretty words like Truth and Beauty.
But god, look at everything they’ve done. All the shrapnel they’ve fired. Those children. Doomed to kill. Doomed to die.
Who really buried their truth under playgrounds?
I’ve been thinking about Yoshitoki, whose best friend of 30 years just shot him in the forehead. Who helped brainwash his only real friend into thinking that there is no way that he, a ghoul, could have cared. No way that friendship could have meant anything.
Arima took his own life and told all their secrets. Cochlea has been breeched. Their (the Washuu) time is up.
Yoshitoki, alone with the things he’s done. The children he’s sired. The lies he’s told. The death he’s caused. The people he’s betrayed.
One son who hates him. One more who hates everything he stands for. His only friend who would prefer to be a murderer than confront the truth. Who could never believe that he could be a friend and a ghoul at the same time.
And whose fault was that, in the end?
This is his legacy. Alone with the things he’s done.
oh man, I was not expecting that but I also loved it so…
This chapter was intense, it took the world that we’ve seen from the beginning, the world we grew to love and care for, and it peeled away the wonderful words. It took away any hope there was for balance because yes, V is so corrupt and awful but V was one of the only things keeping the balance. And to have that illusion of justice ripped away is jarring at best. Was it ever justice if it was built on a lie?
Arguably the Washuus buried the truth under playgrounds didn’t they? They took the truth of what they were (murdering cannibals ghouls) and created children that were going to die anyway. They created a system where ghouls were the enemy, where ghouls were meant to be killed even though the truth was, they were ghouls that wanted to be human (just like all the other ghouls.)
I never particularly cared for Marude, but for someone so close to Yoshitoki try to kill him, but for someone so loyal to the Washuus begin to doubt. It’s a look at what’s going to follow if/once this information reaches the public: One reaper has fallen, the other killed him, your only heroes were a lie, there is no such thing as justice for the humans lost /The biggest threat to ghouls has been eliminated, the system that hurt the ghouls and took so much from them was founded by ghouls, they built a system to persecute their own kind/ The death god of the CCG is dead, his student betrayed him, so many special class and associate special class are dead, the ghouls they’ve been taught to hate and kill were the ones who taught them to.
And Yoshitoki, I don’t know where my feelings stand, but he’s alone in the way the rest of the Washuus are, but through him we see the consequences of the things they’ve done. His life was built on a lie that’s been in place for so long. He’s lost a friend, someone who genuinely did care for him. He lost his sons long ago can’t blame them honestly, and the only thing he had which was a legacy, a legacy of being a form of justice to humanity is now falling apart. And really, what happens now?
I think one of the things this chapter is starting to really show us, and that your edit and that comic represent, is that revolutions are not clean nor pretty. They are brutal affairs that leave death and tragedy in their wake on all sides.
We talk about revolutions with the language of Truth and Beauty and Justice and Hope, but in reality they are messy, messy things almost all the time. And this one most certainly will be.
It isn’t going to be as easy as hoping for a better world or marching with protest signs. It isn’t even going to be as easy as a big battle of good versus evil.
Because Eto, a woman who tortures people because of how they love, and because she hates to see love go uncorrupted, is on the side of freedom here.
Because the villains of are story are the ones who gave the humans the best weapons they have to fight against sometimes vicious and sadistic predators. Because V and the Washuu didn’t create the ghoul restaurant or the auction or the madams. They were fighting against them. Where will that fight be when the bird cage is broken.
Revolutions destroy families, destroy friendships, destroy lives. The words of the comic you chose to use fit so well, because shrapnel is unaimed. It is about doing damage to anything in the area. About damage for the sake of damage. And revolution, when it turns into war, fires shrapnel everywhere.
And it takes down so, so much with it.
And Tokyo Ghoul is too smart of a manga to let us get away with not watching that shrapnel rip apart the good with the bad. This conversation should sound familiar, by the way…
But what is the cost of keeping the peace?
What price is worth paying to shatter it and try for something better?
And what destruction will the attempt leave in its wake? How will you even know if you’ve succeeded in creating a better world, or just a different one? (The French revolution resulted in years of utter terror and ultimately resulted in an empire and another monarchy several times over before it got anything near what it was looking for…)
Revolution is a pretty word, but the real thing is terrifying. But sometimes, the lack of it is even scarier.
(Sorry for extending this post even further with my rambling thoughts and manga caps. Thank you for creating such a thought provoking edit!)
I did recall Furuta’s words. And I myself have jokingly said “burn it all down” but the truth is, you’re right. Revolutions are never that pretty and clean cut. When you get rid of a power, no matter how unjust it is there will be a power vacuum. More often than not, what follows is often worse. France had Napoleon, France returned to where they started and arguably their situation post-revolution was worse than their situation in the time leading up to that revolution.
We can see it in former colonies and how often they fall under military or totalitarian powers/dictatorships. The aftermath of revolutions are not beautiful either. Revolutions are considered beautiful and grand and righteous, but only after the buildings have been burnt. Only after the executions are outlawed. Only after blood has been spilled. We hear about buildings burning in former colonies and we talk about tragedy, but one day this will be history and this will be the lead up to a revolution.
I’ve digressed and gone on into history ramblings but really there’s almost always a pattern to these things. And you’re right TG is smart. Consequence has always been present. The revolution does not/will not/cannot pass peacefully. There is no beauty in the shrapnel, shrapnel is shrapnel and at the end, the players of this war/revolution will be left with the things they have done.
And yes, V is corrupt and awful. That’s been highlighted so often by the narrative. But had they not showed up, had they not created quinques and the CCG, the ghoul organisations would still exist. Restaurants and auctions would still thrive, The Clowns (the original ones, and not our generation of clowns) would still exist, The Black Dobers, The Devil Apes, The White Suits… The ghouls are not innocent either.
Eto may speak for freedom, but she is not the solution. She is cruel and sadistic and she cannot let the good go unpunished. Karren was tortured for loving someone she could not have. Seidou was made to kill, was pushed to be something he wasn’t. She may talk about how ghouls have been persecuted, but she has done no better. She wants revolution (or well that’s how I understood her words) but the price she is willing to pay is not hers to pay.
The world of TG was familiar at least before, the people knew how to live in it. It wasn’t a Right or Just world but they were familiar with it. It’s a theme in Psychopass as well actually. Do we let the corrupt systems continue and continue this illusion of peace or do we bring these systems down and plunge the world into the unknown?
Regardless, the war has begun and I’m scared to see what happens to them. (I’m sorry for rambling too but I needed to talk to someone about this)
Relatable FE Quote or Something 