The Fear of Transformation

one of the most horrifying things in the world or even of our own imaginations is change not just in the way I'd usually mean of philosophical ramblings about consistent self or mental survival but physically the actual Act of changing or rather being changed a force transformation when survival itself is shifted to something new from ura's mass of multiplying flesh to triun Angel arm that destroys cities to Mona magi's witches that arise from wishes there's endless horror to be found in someone who becomes something it's often the end of a tragic Arc showcasing how a character mentally became a monster by shifting their physical form in turn power corrupting all parts of their being especially the unbeatable link between body and mind striking fear in the worst way hell even Edge Runners literally set in a Bo body world where you can change arms with a snap or download new skills to a slot in your neck still uses the loss of the Body for the character's ultimate Fall From Grace we are beings of mind but forever linked to these shells which carry us well this is a powerful aspect of so many stories it's often capitalization on an already established Arc the exclamation point at the end of a powerful sentence the Thematic development ends and we're left to watch in horror as the consequences of entire stories play out there some of the best moments from poignant despair to Hopeful resolve but I wanted to examine why it is this way why it can be used as such a distinct marker that is why we fear transformation to make it so and for that we needed a story where the transformation was the beginning and not the end one which explored coming to terms with a new body maybe even a new mind within it a new society around it and how the minds outside of it may may be the reality of the Monstrous end the transformation always seems to [Music] bring at first I turned to a few stories but as the topic evolved I saw that really there was one covering all that I wanted to say it might not be what you expect from a Channel full of Satoshi khon and Oro butcher coverage but today we're looking at ishida's Tokyo Ghoul or more accurately the anime adaptation of his Tokyo Ghoul I'll say it up front the later Seasons all have massive flaws in fact that was one of my first videos and you can even see the cracks forming in some of the final episodes of the first season when it starts to get much broader in scope but the original was one of the first anime I really gave a fair Shake in terms of depth and I think despite its blunt Dramatics and pacing there's a lot that can be said surrounding its story it follows Ken Kaki your average Bookworm college student who spends most of his time reading in cafes whether that's with his best friend heed or alone with his books his friend is much more outgoing than Ken though as one openly hits on someone he doesn't know while the other can hardly say hello to a girl who's captured his attention for some time for kaneki that's re kashiro a girl with similar descriptors and luckily for him the same taste in books since that's how eye contact turns into a date for him or maybe it was unluckily well their date seems to go fairly well even with the Long Walk Home full of deep talk which seems sure to develop a whole romance plot it suddenly takes a turn when re leans in starts taking a breathy tone to admit that she's had her eye on him for some time too and then takes a bite right out of Ken's shoulder it turns out that she is a ghoul creatures who look and sound exactly like humans with a key difference they can only derive Nutri I from human flesh R is actually quite a well-known one the binge eater known for the chaos she causes some of which she unleashes on Ken almost killing him but before the deed can be done an accident kills her medical help gets to Ken and he's saved with the transplant of her organs he wakes up and recovers quickly despite his injuries with only one weird side effect he can't bring himself to eat anything as everything he tries tastes downright awful however the doctor brushes this off and a depressed Ken refusing to see his friend returns home to see he left a care package for him he goes to lie down and do nothing though still missing all his classes but in his depression background noise he finds a shocking broadcast our food tastes disgusting to ghouls because their tongues work differently than ours though of course he has the realization he rushes to the kitchen to try and eat every single thing in that care package in the fridge from sauces to milk sodas and burgers and ends up throwing back up every single one but rushing back to try even more nonetheless he can't even bring himself to eat his favorite hamburger a specific call out in he's note the care of his best friend can't mean anything to him here this is where we begin to see something more interesting in his character of course no one is going want to get this information into their mind it's likely anyone would keep trying again and again hoping they would find one shred of evidence against what they knew in the back there but what's more captivating is that very idea that a small scrap of evidence would be enough for one to hold back something so much larger with so much more backing behind it there can be a mountain of proof for the thing we don't desire and we'll refuse it but if we find a single bit of one for the thing that we do we'll cling to it with endless hope it's a constant stream of decisions that after every single test even stabbing himself in the gut with a knife to see if his skin resists weapons like a ghouls does he keeps going back for more and I think that knife test really says the most he may approach it with chaotic doubt but what he actually take such a fatal swing if he wasn't sure deep down of what had happened to him he knows it he's just not accepting it so after that he tries to carry on as if it's nothing new even as his mind is slowly overtaken with thoughts of killing and eating someone but he picks up on a sweet smell one he even thinks of like his mother's cooking and follows it to the origin a ghoul hunched over a corpse desperately feasting the situation changes quite rapidly though as a ghoul named Nishi shows up and kills the one eating and threatens Ken before being stopped by another ghoul TOA who treats Ken a little bit better than trying to kill him but begins trying to force him to eat as she gets annoyed with his rejection of survival the whole time Ken is back and forth between filling his hunger and refusing the flesh that he's handed without having to kill or harm anyone even if someone else did each time he comes closer and closer but he swats it away screaming something like well I won't cuz I'm a human and this is where we see why that single shred can come to define something so strongly we think of groups as these distinct masses or at least label them that way you're short average or tall despite height being a completely analog range defined only by the markers we decide we count in increments with much more resolution than these three groups and could go even deeper but we only describe it in three terms in America for example you're from like the Northeast the South the Midwest or the West despite those places bleeding into each other and not being very descriptive terms anyway or say you have family from both or moving from one to the other and so on if you moved around you know that you'll find elements that blend between them all but that gradient is lost in those strict distinctions in this situation there's either human or ghoul but there isn't a middle ground in anyone's mind a ghoul is defined by a lack of humanity someone who kills and eats like that has all of theirs revoked in a simple social calculation no matter if they were human just yesterday and still have all the same traits or not this is why k and we so often in our situations cling to these single elements of proof for something that we are or aren't the decision of our inclusion is made on the basis of these simplified terms as such even if someone has ghou like traits like their nearly impervious skin or the Cogan a weapon-like organ they can produce when needed to fight are they actually a gohou if they don't take the usual action associated with one eating a person this is trying to flip that Simplicity on its head not to show that one is something something but that one isn't something by holding back from that all-encompassing act if Ken has every other trait of them but never does this is he a ghoul we can find this sentiment in his own yells when he says part of me wants to shove it in my mouth but I know I can't cuz if I do I won't be a human showing that he finds this action as the last barrier against him being considered a ghoul and not a human since there is no in between option it's an attempt to not meet the criteria it does make sense in a way I'm always talking about labels as quite nefarious even if they are necessary social tools at their base but when we start to look at labels derived from actions there's at least a logic to why we do this we can't look inside someone's head or most times even inside their body there's no way to understand what someone else is thinking sometimes even if we directly ask them to express it because well there's just too much abstract space and thoughts and and differences between Minds however actions Bound by physicality don't have as much nebulous space open for interpretation we can see what someone does quite certainly even if we don't know why they actually did it I mean say I take this mechanical pencil and throw it over my shoulder you can guess it why I did it you'd probably say because I wrote it in the script but can you say for certain that this section wasn't ad libed or that I'm not trying to leave a mark on a piece of paper back there for some reason however you can say with 100% certainty that I did in fact take a pencil and throw it over my shoulder so we tend to Define identities with actions rather than thoughts or feelings because of their ease of observation but we can say this with observation on the whole not just with actions put simply for an example does someone look like they belong in that group if you hadn't heard me speak or seen my face and I walked around the corner like this you'd confidently say well here comes a man but if I did it like this you'd then confidently say here comes a woman despite the same exact person being there both times the Judgment precedes the knowledge since actions are a part of this broader group of observation what Ken is doing is trying to control what he can about his leg he can't help that he looks like a ghoul now with his one eye or that to other ghouls he smells like one too but he can't avoid ever performing that defining action of feasting on flesh pulling that definition back a bit he looks like one he smells like one but does he act like one since you can't take your thoughts and feelings and place them in someone else's mind and you simply can't control what those things of their own say about you what you're left with is observation and most prominently actions this is the basis of Ken's rejection of becoming a ghoul and why he continued to deny so vehemently despite all the evidence to the contrary if judgment can be made without real knowledge then maybe that little bit he can show would mean the world but we have to also consider why is this a change that he would deny to begin with obviously if you told me that I suddenly had to start eating people to survive I I wouldn't want to do it either that's an immense part of why Ken is resisting as hard as this obvious ly however it isn't the only thing he expresses fear about and so I think it's worth looking at some of the other issues he raises as well still in his screaming match with or rather at TOA we have him saying this I can't be a cool if this is what it's like I've never even heard a fly so how am I supposed to fight what's interesting about this to me is not specifically about having to eat a human but having to go about surviving in a new way about having new responsibilities requ required for your life after all he was in a comfortable Groove with life he has the books he's always had the cafes he reads them in the classes he goes to and probably does well in and so on he doesn't ever speak to R until she basically does it for him because he has no reason to act or change he is perfectly comfortable as he is this is the natural progression of life we form our ruts until they get too deep to see we climb out and we do it all over again the human being is insane L capable of normalizing think about how stressful a new job is and then 6 months later how you can do parts of it without even thinking or you might even be training others who came after you you're once terrified of messing up everything and now you know it was hardly ever even possible to mess them up to begin with we might not like everything we have but we can sure as hell get comfortable with it then suddenly you end up right back at the new job phase when the change occurs it's not just that you don't know how to do what you have to do it's that you don't even know what it is that you have to do Ken has no idea of what being a goal entails because it's always been defined by just eating people he's never seen their daily life or if they go to school or anything else other than feeding is that all it is this is the deep end everything he knows comes to an end right here correct the unawareness and uncertainty is killer and this fuels his rejection because it's not just not wanting to be a ghoul it's about not wanting to have to relearn how to live because you are a ghoul it's like he dies when he accepts this change because as far as he's concerned everything he knew about life comes to an end it's not just his habits generally but important ones that sustained him he always had his father's old books to comfort him once his parents passed away but the ghouls like books do they do they read they're supposed to be bloodthirsty monsters especially if his runin with re and isi have taught him anything re was probably just faking to enjoy it to capture him since she admits it was a long con there's his favorite hamburger a food that probably denoted many great nights of his life that's gone forever as well he can't even experience a small link to those human moments of his past life anymore the [ __ ] which usually carry forward past major change and comfort us all Begin to Fall Away for him and most importantly is his social life because it's not just gaining new responsibilities but also losing old ones speaking about heday kaneki says what upsets me the most about all this is if I were to stop being human I couldn't hang out with him anymore H was a huge part of Ken's life as it's established they were childhood friends really Ken's only friend who's always been there with for him through his mother's death and beyond he even remarks how little heday has changed over the years with the visual gag of how he runs up behind him playing out the same then and now this relationship is one of the few solid things to remain in his life it makes up a large portion of what he does for his own sake not work or classes or those kind of things and it was a constant note through every change he's ever faced somewhere to turn against the stress and now he has to give that up because of the danger he poses it turns out Nishi goes to school with Ken and heed and of course this leads to him attacking the pair he Corners them in an and tortures kaniki mentally by assaulting heday physically Kent manages to survive though through an emotional Outburst despite his injuries where his feelings for heday force him forwards but the exhaustion incurred makes his hunger worse enough that he comes this close to eating heed from Instinct after just saving him prevented only at the last minute by TOA once again knowing that this is inside of him he can't bring himself to be around heay in good conscience cutting him out would hurt but not as much as killing him if Ken is a ghou he has to make the decision to rid his life of one of the only good things to ever persist in it of course he won't want to accept that but even further replacing what little social ability he had is no small task because it's not like he can just go out and make more human friends the people whose world he knows and knows how to communicate with for the same reason so what's left to him is to make friends with the ghouls but he doesn't know the world of the ghouls we've already established that he doesn't have the first clue of what it entails besides eating people and his only interactions thus far are being attacked by ghouls with re's assault Nishi trying to kill him twice and toga forcing him to eat none of them want him around he has to avoid humans as a ghoul but has to try and connect with ghouls as a human that they hate with his split eyes it's even more obvious to both sides to find something they hate in him on taku the cafe he frequents takes him in and feeds him while he's asleep after nishi's second attack removing that last barrier against becoming a ghoul in his mind he laments this occurrence saying I'm alone I'm not a human or a cool there's no place for me he's lost all comfort and establishment everything is uprooted and he's forced to reconsider and acquaint himself with every single aspect of Life all at once I don't think anyone could accept this even without the feeding part or creatures who purposefully create extra barriers against change in times of stability exactly to prevent situations like this even the very basis of a barebone society itself is similar to this as it's supposed to provide a baseline against total loss through the sacrifice of certain freedoms in a way this is a form of death felt by the living the loss of everything that defined your life he has transformed from a human being into do nothing but what if we said this was all in many ways and overreaction or even more that Ken's rejection of his new life is actually what caused it to feel like the end of life itself after all if you lose one but are presented with another it's the refusal of the new one which leaves you without to be clear Ken is a liability after his transformation in the first episode he stands among a crowd of people as his thoughts turn from seeing them as people to seeing them as food and he has to pull himself out of this mindset again and again leading to his almost failure with heday in the second episode a stunning scene where re overtakes his mind from the inside the Instinct of a chaotic binge eater trying to enter the world once more but this is also without the full context because this isn't what hunger is for a ghoul this is what starvation is for a ghou as TOA says starvation is utter hell for a ghou not hunger is hell for ghouls further we know from background dialogue that feeding on one person is supposed to last ghouls for some two months meaning that this level of instinct only occurs after not eating for very long stretches of time we see this as almost no other goal in the season exhibits this behavior only Nishi at a later point when he can't get food because Ken left him almost dead in too weak to do so these are individuals who spend their entire days around people whether it's serving them in a cafe or learning alongside of them and no one is the wiser they can be around people naturally with almost no risk when we look at a wider situation so the reason that Ken can't isn't because he's a ghoul but conversely to how he thought because he is rejecting being a gold and refusing to eat he's driving himself to the worst of their capacities in order to try and claim that he has none of them like many topics we cover it's a mindset that provides temporary relief in exchange for a much larger cost in the long term again I'm not saying that making the shift to eating as he has to is easy and that is its own barrel of concerns but he had moments where he was offered a solution both messily and cleanly where he would have to do no harm and he rejected them all alike and it was this which led him to almost eating the most important person in his life instead a transformation like this is awful it's full of uncertainty and loss and pain and suffering but rejecting it will only ever worsen those things over time like we all know from many things acceptance is the first step there's an interesting reason why his condition reaching the extremes doesn't tip him off to this though you'd think that staring down such awful possibilities one would wonder if this is the only way it is if ghouls all suffer this kind of starvation all the time then there would be no peace in the world at all so this couldn't be what normal is like for them but he's never going to think that way because all he knows of ghouls is tragedy so all he'll think is possible of being a ghoul is similarly tragedy all the news reports about ghouls are the awful cases summaries of Destruction and death I won't say they're sensationalized because it is a true horrible thing happening but what I will say is that this being the only information presented permeating into the public through this kind of background detail that we get in our own world with the news and current events creates this kind of idea in Ken's mind from a lack of detail we see that he doesn't even know or at least doesn't remember how ghoul's taste works it's one of the most basic things about them literally tied to the thing everyone knows that they eat people it's part of why they have to do that to begin with but no one knows or at least doesn't care to know that the information is so limited that all they represent to people is tragedy and so as a ghoul Ken must either cause tragedy or bear tragedy he either has to consume his friends or cut them out either has to kill other humans or die to prevent it since he believes that something horrible must happen he's not going to struggle against these things happening to him since it's a protective translation if it must occur the best he can do is make it occur to him instead the thing is it doesn't have to occur at least for what we'll explain next it doesn't have to occur from them but we'll see later that it doesn't have to at all because there are solutions out there for gos to live without having to take food from Those Who Kill others or without anyone in that chain of events having to kill onu provides a unique Solution on the surface it has its issues but again we'll address that more later for now we're just showing that there are options they collect the bodies of individuals who commit a certain selfa that YouTube won't allow you to say no matter the context or level of respect and use that to sustain those who either can't or refuse to hunt now they do still mend the territory of their Ward for hunting for those who do but we can at least see that as a best effort to reduce damages dealt by those who wouldn't listen to their Authority no matter what now overall it's still not the most savored practice it's not all-encompassing either however it is done with as much respect as possible while still seeding to the necessary secrecy with even the stone emotion yomo offering prayer before they go through with anything this solution still requires that someone dies however it does not require that they themselves perpetuate death after all Ken is able to live as a ghoul for some time without ever taking a bite of someone himself and we'll explore later how it's cost could be lessened even more what matters is that we can see that there were other ways there was nothing which actually stated that Ken had to do harm to survive from the very first moments this was clear at the very least he could have lessened the danger he posed where if he did have to kill it could have at least been less visceral and personal in killing his best friend however this requires not just more knowledge than any average person in his world would reasonably have but also acceptance to ask how can I survive as a goal without killing inails accepting one is one to begin with he would never find a better solution because he wasn't looking for one as long as he remains in this stasis of tragedy things will only get worse for that exact reason what I'm doing here isn't saying that he should have been better as any of us would react just as poorly all I'm doing is simply trying to Showcase that his rejection was what led to these extremes of it by attempting to never become the thing he knew he was kaneki made himself the worst version of it that he could have been hunched over his friend's body and frothing at the mouth justifying his decision by saying a special friend should be a truly special meal any process with this much new will be terrifying and we should understand the difficulties they place on us and others and be as understanding as we can during the process for ourselves just as much as anyone but nothing will change the fact that denying what we know will most likely lead to a worse outcome and more pain than had we accepted it to begin with deep down we usually know it's just being able to say the words which confirm the thing that now defines part of us where things get even more complicated though is that as Ken's Journey continues with the ghouls of onku he finds it isn't as different as it seemed in fact he comes to find a lot of humanity in these people he once assumed were monsters on a small scale they live lives just as the same as any human he's working in a cafe with them that he used to go to all the time and was never aware of its secret where they continued to serve humans and ghouls alike yomo and his friends UTA and I hang out in the bar like anyone would with the former owning his own shop that's presumably open to humans just the same to stay afloat Nishi goes to Canyon's University and never showed any signs of being inhuman and TOA goes to high school where it's the same exact deal when you take into account that onu allows them to eat in a way which is at least Humane in presentation and as Humane as possible overall considering the circumstances then you really can't point to much difference in their lives unless those differences are provoked by the ccg the police force dedicated to the ER ation of ghouls Ken even thinks to himself at some point why are all these ghouls suddenly popping up around me they've always been here I've just never noticed because there is so little distinction physically I mean they're essentially living the same lives but it goes deeper than just the physical way they go about their days and extends into the connections they make and the feelings they express TOA will force herself to eat human food to respect the efforts of a friend Nishi is willing to fight and die for a human he loves who's even aware that he's a ghoul and let her eat from him to save him when he was too weak to hunt and there's most prominently heed me and her mother roko they're a peaceful family cared for by Anu who are launched into tragedy when the father a ghoul doctor is hunted down and killed leading the ccg to see the dwellings of an entire family and keep searching to kill the rest we're talking about stuffed animals that a child would have drawings of a happy family in crayon cloth all about in the chaos of family life with the young child packed into this small space hin and kaneki connect over literature as he Geeks out about her reading his favorite author and he begins to teach her the word she's unfamiliar with in the books so such a genuine excitement and that's especially of note because this is the same kind of thing he enjoyed as a human enjoyed even in the same exact way as it was beforehand one of those rocks he was afraid of losing is exactly as it was but things don't stay very peaceful as he has to hold he back when her own mother is killed in front of her and later even used as a weapon against her the tools the ccg used their Quin are made from the ghoul's koganes despairing at the loss of her father and mother in such a short time she can only say things like ghouls in the world don't mix we can't live like this I just want to go wherever Mama went it's undeniably human in every single way from how the connections are made and felt to the emotions expressed when they're lost and all these people he sees love and hate trust and suspicion gain and loss alike the same you'd see with any human life both on the outside and inside ghouls are much more human than Ken ever expected he didn't have to give up anywhere near as much of his Humanity to live in their world you can even keep being friends with heed this means that both platforms for his rejection and both criteria for judgment those physical aspects other used to label and the emotional ones we use on ourselves failed to really distinguish these worlds what Ken was rejecting only had to be food not at all the disaster it seemed and nowhere near the chaos had caused him internally by rejecting it the only real difference then is how they're seen is that really what causes all this pain what causes Two Worlds to begin with just simple [Music] mentality [Music] to finalize that statement we have to return to the solution on take offers which is the one sticking point against it ghouls can only eat people and that's a fact that can't change and so there will always be something separating them from humans and in a way which does lend itself to violence however how close can these World be brought together if we expand their solution maybe even similar to ones we already know the methodology of onu is somewhat flawed but let's examine why it's flawed stealing the bodies of people who committed that thing YouTube won't let me say no matter what the context or level of respect is what leaves a bad taste in the mouth because even in death it feels somewhat like praying on a vulnerable group they're people who had their own thoughts and feelings and families who will now never know as these people remain cold cases forever however as we said they choose this specifically because it's the option where no one is killed from their actions and secrecy is maintained that forever uncertain nature is required since the ccg would immediately be on the case of known deaths with suddenly missing bodies this means that in their quest to exterminate or drive out every ghoul the ccg is actually creating the most unlikable aspect of onu solution if they could be more public about being ghouls who live without harming humans they could say reach out to sympathetic parties to find a consensual solution in our World there are already organ donor programs where you can consent to donation to save the lives of others if you die it's entirely optional and of course perfectly legal and you never hear a peep about how it disrespects the body or at least I've never heard complaints like that so would it really be too much of a stress to say that someone could donate their entire body upon their unrelated death to be food for goals so that no one still living is harmed assuming there's no money involved in proper oversight you could have this be a perfectly reasonable practice with hospitals and whatever form of preparation and distribution is chosen which could even be used to detach the human form from the process so that ghouls become more averse to the gore of attacking someone if you wanted to be more strict about it you could also use it as a way to essentially census the ghouls as they come in for their share regulating and tracking consumption Define any others who might be otherwise hunting as outliers I'm not saying it's perfect or something something you put in place overnight it's not as if I've researched specifics for it but it's just to show that there is an adaptation of what's already in place to prevent violence because you only would have to see it as helping ghouls if it willingly reduces attacks and hostility it's a human beneficial solution just the same of course it's not a perfect solution because well I'm just like a random 20s something person on the internet talking about an answer to a madeup question that I don't have experience with all in the context of a work of fiction there are a lot of issues you could point out as such a government riing on free elections would never begin a program which was immensely unpopular even if beneficial in the long run the established Powerhouse that is the ccg would never willingly give up their resources and power even though they could be adapted into the oversight body in the fear of allowing more physically powerful creatures equal footing would Stoke fear in those acting in ill Faith who often have power and a audence and would see lowering their status as required to maintain one's own because they have that inbuilt weakness mindset but most glaringly who would willingly opt into this program even if it passed all these other hurdles we just took all this time to show that mindset is the only real issue here so why propose a solution which requires changing minds and this is really what the core of it all is and many other issues the actual Act of Shifting what normal is believed to be is required to begin but only occurs from having already begun one way to think about this is with one of the concerns people may have about such a solution as a species we often like to have the remains of the Dead in order for the living to grieve or at least many cultures do it's assumed or even required essentially that when someone dies the remaining loved ones will organize and pay for a funeral I say required because you always have to pay for something to happen with the body I can remember complaints from my parents about how expensive it was to receive my grandfather's body even before any other funeral costs it's such a normaliz practice that like food or shelter it's a cost that we are prepared for and are guaranteed to face in life but unlike those things it's not actually required to survive we could just as easily have been a species of creature which only buried their dead for sanitary reasons and with no ceremony to it it's one of those practices that the ordinary person probably couldn't really tell you the origins of yet we all do it anyway the only way an action is normalized is if it's believed to be so even if there's legal or strict social enforcement those themselves are based on the idea of normal and so they simply put a form to it this then goes unquestioned because why out something that's so usual it's assumed and then the mindset perpetuates the mindset you can see this with so many things funerals the 9 to5 work hours monogamous relationship salad being served before a real meal the side of the road your country chose to drive on one sees one copies and one accepts it's a NeverEnding cycle of Simplicity and so this is where we come to the real tragedy of it all there's a prevailing mindset of ghouls or monsters which we saw so heavily in kaniki that he believed would bring about the end of everything human in his life but as the story progresses he sees even more human aspect in the ghouls again and again eventually reaching the point where he can say I'm more cool than human these days without hesitation due to everything we covered about how similar they are both in observation and an abstraction it's only from living a life he never knew and never wanted to know that he's able to see this truth from understanding these people their motivations and their lives he can come to see someone who attacked him on nothing but Power fantasy as even a worthy friend but digging into their individual stories from Nishi and Kim's relationship or a ghoul who trusted no one survive from the trust of a human to TOA eating urose food where someone would literally make herself sick to respect a friend's effort toiny and the loss of her family which serves as a universal tragedy anyone can understand he's able to accept well life These are situations independent of their binary label of ghoul or human they are simply a part of living the only way to know it is to feel it to have some basis in one's mind where they can understand what's going through the mind of another for example to know loss so one can Comfort loss it comes back to the inability to understand those abstract elements we can't know until we know this is something expressed in Ken's first meeting with TOA as a ghoul where he rages about having to live the only kind of life she's ever known in a calm moment though she says I've always wondered why humans love cake you guys sure seem to enjoy eating it it tastes so disgusting to me that it makes me want to puke despite being a somewhat silly line its Simplicity expresses this important concept through something we all know taste one of the true differences between humans and ghouls is Taste Buds and it's also a difference between us humans some of us love chocolate and others hate it it's the same thing physically to all of us but experientially it's entirely different so when we say some love it and some hate it well this is all we can say we can apply labels to it like sweet or bitter but those labels are themselves only what we've learned to call a certain sensation you were given candy and told it was sweet so you Associated sweet with that flavor but this is the same subjective process for everyone so there is no definition for the experience of sweetness Could you actually climb into someone's head and taste their version of sweet to know that it's the same as yours I could say I love chocolate and you say me too and we'd both leave thinking that the other loves the taste we know but in reality they could be entirely separate Sensations but we never know and we never question because to us it is simply the process of experiencing it objectively when Toco wonders why humans like cake it's not knowing what cake tastes like to us and thinking that it's stupid it's knowing what it tastes like to her and wondering how it could be different for anyone else how is there anything good to be found in something so rancid to her the same principle applies to the lives that have to live a human can't understand what a ghoul experiences when they're starving we can only think of what we know as hunger and assume it's the same when you watch the show and saw a hungry Kiki you probably assumed stomach pains and maybe something like a headache or at least for me that's what it would be but for him it's likely that and then some with how his head is overtaken by re it's mentally distressing to say the least so much so he can't consider anything else when his mouth starts to froth is that also causing a pain in his mouth or throat does his entire body start to ache is it pulling energy from fat or from something else leading to an entirely unknown sensation to us and it's not even just this but the emotions which go into having to kill something that looks just like you sounds just like you and feels just like you and then to eat it we think of how awful it is for humans and it is but we see that ghouls struggle with it as well a young Nishi a ghoul from birth even says to his older sister when they find a body trying not to kill anyone it's just that I don't want to eat people anymore sis even to him it was a harmful thing he was eating these things that were just like him there's an emotional aspect which is incomprehensible to a human living a modern life we're meant to be social cohabit creatures we come together to find food not to kill each other for it but what if that wasn't an option because we were the food every single meal would be torture every friend could easily become a foe and even then that's just imagination we can't know because we don't know what to know all we personally know is that when you're hungry you go and get some food from the kitchen and if there's none there you go and buy some and if you can't buy some you find another way from theft to charity but almost never killing someone we feel inherently in our very beings that there is no depth to this issue because there is always a different way besides what the ghouls do this is why the mindset Ken had could exist because there are many elements to what he felt but they all come back to one thing the very subjectivity of existence itself he couldn't know until he [Music] knew so we reached that question at the heart of kaneki's initial rejection again having seen the difference only has to be nutrition but is made be such a large divide that he could believe his entire Humanity was lost from this change is there one single trait which if lost or gained changes whether someone is or isn't human just having to eat human flesh makes someone no longer human the red eyes and a biological weapon Mak someone no longer human or does agonizing over the death of family make them human again does the determination to love someone whatever the definition and cost make them human again when almost all things are subjective at the end of the day the question starts to lose definition how do we Define what a human is when human is different to every single one we start to reach into this metaphysical Space full of abstract thoughts what in all of this chaos could be something tying us together well what about the very desire to be human to begin with the goals in the series go to extreme lengths to present themselves as human beings both for their safety and more every single one of them learns how to swallow food so disgusting The Taste alone can make them vomit whole pretend to chew and swallow it in a natural way and then purposefully vomit it all back out before it begins to poison them from the inside some even go further than this to not just blend in but to truly be in we've referenced how TOA forces herself to eat a friend's meal before but haven't gotten in depth about it it starts small when her friend yoro notices that all she ever eats is sugary packaged baked goods it's of course because she's not actually eating it and so both she wouldn't know how to cook and would also only be wasting her time and effort to make something so pointless to her it means a lot to humans but as we saw TOA literally can't understand how finding it as meaningful as humans do though Yuro won't let her go without trying a piece of her home-cooked meal for once which of course toga says is delicious because of this she's later in the bathroom trying not to throw up forcing herself to digest something which is harmful to her body chugging water and pounding on her stomach she finishes with an almost happily but exhausted statement I ate it yoro my compliments to the chef this is one of those moments that takes what could have easily been a forgettable edgy story and makes it something special because of how well it captures this important idea humans have ideas of how to express care from words to gifts to food but at the end of the day it's always about the thought the effort of providing something at someone's own cost which is counted at care for someone who likes to cook as yoro seems to this is her way of expressing care which is fundamentally understood and loved by humans but it's harmful to ghouls so not just to fit in but to feel like she's worthy of that human effort TOA forces herself to actually consume it anyway because a human would never let something like that go to waste because a human would love eating it when her friend notices that she hardly eats eats like a real person it's invalidating in a way that no one would ever think about unless they were a ghoul it's like the beginning of saying well are you even human but having no idea that care which is being expressed is harmful because that person can't present their real identity to you the best of efforts become the worst of pains from the inherent lack of understanding and further its harsh enforcement choking that meal down is expressing much more than just some sort of drama it is some desperately saying I want to be human just as much as you we see this more when shei kanaki and Nishi go to save Kimi from The Gourmet skama he kidnaps her to try and fulfill his sick plans for consuming Ken although the trio does manage to prevent that from happening however Kimi is aware of the going on around her having heard all their names and voices and as such she now knows not just that Nishi is a ghoul but also that TOA and kenar which threatens not just them but all of on hiu and then the balance of the 20th war that they maintain because of that this one human knowing and getting that information out could destroy everything the ccg would Trace them right back to their Cafe and eradicate them all she knows that the safest thing to do is to kill her and she tries to but she finds herself unable when Kim's blindfold comes off and her first reaction to TOA in complete GH form is to say simply how pretty she runs away shocked wondering how that applies to her a literal monster what's important isn't that she was called pretty we see that all the time with people like heed what matters is that as a ghoul cognate and eyes and all and with a completely natural reaction she was still called pretty because pretty is a thing humans are not goals that's why her whole life has been trying to become a human where she's been having to accept a care which hurts her all this time now someone is seeing the truth of her and accepts it without a second thought or even more or Praises it Ken was sure of his Humanity because he once was human but TOA always a ghoul wasn't in any way she was always hiding always hunted always worried about what the next day would bring she never had that kind of comfortable life and her harshness comes from this fact to her Humanity was a dream not something to be lost and here for a moment for once without any pain she's able to gain it to see that it's possible if someone has the right mindset about her for ghouls to be humans exactly as they are not whenever they're hurting themselves to look the part and this saves Kim's life she treated the danger just as human as the love and it allowed for someone who was always found being a monster necessary to survive to know that it wasn't always the case but this doesn't come easy any other time for every so pretty there's a thousand so uglies most notably there's a conflict she has with with MTO a well-known name in the ccg for his ruthless hunting of ghouls he's the man who saw a house full of family objects and decided it was the perfect grounds to chase down and kill more than he already had he's an oddity in Tokyo Ghoul that it could have used more of a character who's around for a specific and impactful purpose before actually leaving the story for good and what he adds is a parallel at first literally at first in the opening of the anime we get to see ghouls as mon moners with re bathing on the gorge she's produced and being chased by yamar a sadistic ghou gives us one of the most striking and memorable episodes of all time at the end of the season with his torturous methods again another one of my first anime videos they can call weapons on their bodies with demented eyes they host Gourmet events where live murderers on the menu and they kill each other and hunch over bodies in back alleys interspersed with all the human aspects they showcase there are ones which are truly those of monsters and that cannot be denied but motto is that for the humans he'll wound Ghouls and use them to track down information in their pain he'll hunt down families who never hurt a soul and in fact even did their best to help others and if that wasn't enough he'll turn the parents into weapons to be used against their own daughter which he gleefully calls a reunion they can plead and beg for their lives show every single human trait and no matter what he'll deny its value a man with a daughter of his own will mentally torture someone else's with the very death of her parents the bodies of her dead parents he exists for one purpose which is to eradicate ghouls while even the original season hints at his vengeful motivations for doing so whatever the case we see what we see a human monster where TOA is hurting herself to be human he's hurting others but claiming to be doing the same thing so can we really say that those inum traits of the ghouls are of the ghouls there are humans who do just the same hunting down others with demented eyes carrying literally the same weapons that they do and I think even worse because they're making the decision to carry them they choose to live this kind of Life they have humanity and give it up as TOA so often expresses she never had that decision to make how are we supposed to live by your rules when our bodies won't let us I don't want much I just want to live my life the same way you do M does even Flinch at her statements though they'll never believe anything they do even when it seems so human it couldn't be so it must just all be an act but as things progress and Hami saves TOA who goes on to repay the favor m is killed and they live disgusted by his gloves since they represent how he finds them so disgusting refus to even let his skin make contact she rips them off to find a wedding ring underneath and despite being so simple it kind of sends her into shock from what it means but this means that even someone like him a monster had people at home who loved him a wife at least and as we see a daughter who loved him as well and even the man who mentored Alan who despairs just as much she'd killed the ccg investigator just before this as well leading to this whole chain of events and probably begins to see the same thing about his death which we know from his friend's great mourning that it is a true loss and this is true about every death there is no such thing as a safe kill she treated MTO as he treated them although I would argue the reasonings do create a difference but either way there is no one who leaves the world without some amount of sadness even a monster as people who love them H's experience with losing a parent has felt just the same across their Gap to M's daughter the quest to protect one's Humanity only led to the loss of it in every single case because there is no one definition no set of traits which say true or false it's all just justification for actions against others that's all the labels provided this is what Ken's Journey evolves to the fear of transformation subsides as he sees that the mindset is the biggest difference and he can be just as human as he was before but it begins to grow once more when he sees just how little this will make him be seen as human with every similarity and effort down to allowing himself to be beaten to death death before he would attack a human up until the most dire moment where failure would let someone he loves be killed instead those who are what he used to be and still is in almost every way will refuse to recognize any of that the labels will always be used to reduce as TOA is having that fight with M he's having this exchange with man where he continues to be beaten despite his lack of resistance again and again being knocked down the path with great force it's here that it all Dawns on Ken we just covered in that a large reason why this persists is because we simply can't know until we know just as he now knows as Aman continues to beat him TOA didn't believe anyone could love M there are simply differences that will never be known until one lives them but kaneki as someone born as one but becoming the other is few and far between and sharing his perspective and knowing firsthand that there need be no distinction the fear of transformation is great within oneself but we can overcome ourselves we can live what we once didn't know the hardest part is convincing the world to do the same right after we witnessed firsthand the only solution and how much difficulty it's fraught with we have to begin a change which requires itself to start and this is why the series goes on for so long and into such unconvincing directions with one of the few positive notes being that it doesn't make Ken's journey to unite both sides easy his own mentality shifts even within the first season as he goes from thinking it's not the world that's messed up it's those of us in it to Breaking from torture and saying instead what's wrong is this messed up world it's a challenge that isn't overcome in a day and one with such harshness that many would do as he goes on to do and care only for the ones they love the world be damned because saving what little you love will always be easier when you don't love the whole world the quest is tough enough that it will wear down the ones who are forced to face it very easily and I think that's where what I have to say ends the series starts to fall apart after episode 8 to be honest and to focus on the transformation dies down after this so what I needed from it is done at least and as always this was of course what I gathered firstmost wholeheartedly from the series but also what I needed to say myself the problem is is I don't have an answer the fear of transformation is only past the first stage the internal one which is what I intended to write about and only through writing it did I truly come to terms with the second one the much harsher one which I didn't intend to write about I don't know how to face that world even if I am assured of my own Humanity I know others won't be to say I have an answer to that would be childish and I know one mind can't send up to the world of Minds whether that's to change it or simply to survive it the most I can do is speak about it and try to break the pattern of normal creating normal that we can't know until we know the most important part is how Ken had to live in this new world before he could even understand the true fear and tragedy of transformation to see that it both wasn't what he feared and also that there was still so much to fear we can't all do that we can't all change into something else just to know but we can try some of it we can talk to those who have and listen to their stories and accept their words we can wonder what makes someone human so that we're sure we don't lose those important things we can broaden our Horizons to see that such a thing is most often simply the desire to be so and that if someone is willing to accept the inherent pain of humanity to take even more of it on to be themselves how could they not deserve what little benefit Humanity provides in return asking what a human is may be the most human thing we can do the very Act of self-discovery itself self and I guess that means the answer is simply to live in the pain that awareness brings because eventually if everyone is there it won't need to bring pain anymore

Channel: ProfessorViral

Views: 75,949

Keywords: Tags: anime, manga, professorviral, analysis, discussion, explained, video essay, tokyo ghoul, kaneki, touka, ghoul, root a, re, transformation, transition, change, fear, scared

Id: IJ0MLNaMNIs

Length: 56min 52sec (3412 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 14 2024