disorganized untitled thesis on satosugu and the rest of jjk part 1/?
while it is true i cannot clinically be Normalβ’ about satosugu for many reasons including the probable late adolescent involvement with a buddhist cult (Etcetc u can believe any wack shit i say or not or just take it for a Schizophrenic Comedy but you know you know), i am also overflowing with satosugu thoughts at any point in time.
HERE'S SOME DISORGANIZED THOUGHTS ABOUT SATOSUGU (and yuuji/sukuna)!
gojo is what in my internal world would be classified as a "nonpareil" which means he is peerless, there is no one that can match him, and it's Not a good thing. as the english translation loves to say, "are you the strongest because you're gojo satoru? or are you gojo satoru because you're the strongest?"
what this means to me is that the entire structure of gojo's identity is composed of "being the strongest," so there's no clear casuative relationship between if he is the strongest because that's the most important thing to being "gojo satoru" or if he is known as, reputed as, identified as "gojo satoru" because of an innate trait he already possessed.
it's unclear if he "became" the strongest Because he is "gojo satoru" or if he "became" "gojo satoru" because he is the strongest.
regardless, gojo satoru's identity is defined by being "the strongest," and that means no one can match him, he is a nonpareil, he is peerless.
because of that it is easy for him to become an object of envy even by his best friend, who calls him by his first name with no honorifics, which is an immense position of intimacy despite their rivalry, as can be indicated in the early episodes of jjk s2.
just like. geto's relationship to gojo is defined by the insurmountable abyss that opens between them when they stop becoming "the strongest duo" and when gojo simply becomes "the strongest," without geto, without needing him anymore, without geto being able to catch up.
geto deeply resents gojo for gojo's peerlessness, the arrogance that befits him, because young gojo is better than everyone and he knows it. geto is incredible, but he can't catch up.
like in the first episodes of jjk s1, the difference between two special grades can be immense and immeasurable. like sukuna and that special grade curse from eps 4-5. both special grade, but two entirely different classes of it.
i'm overflowing with thoughts about how like, geto loves and hates gojo in equal measure. gojo shines so fucking brightly, geto can't help but to love him, who couldn't love him, and in my opinion, gojo Needs geto, otherwise without him...who could tolerate gojo?
if geto can't love him, who could?
just...
without geto, gojo IS the strongest, but he is alone.
to be a nonpareil is to be alone.
no one can keep up with you, no one can match you, you are utterly isolated at the top of your field. without geto, gojo is just alone. what does it matter to be the strongest if you have no one to witness you, what does it matter if you are the strongest and untouchable, unloved, and desired, but only for your practical function, your usefulness in achieving others' ends.
it's hard to explain to someone who isn't fluent in japanese, but japanese is full of ambiguities, it is a language defined by ambiguities, whereas english is defined by its contrasts and strictures, its discrete categories as fundamental as classifying something as "good" or "evil," japanese culturally exists in the middle to the point of indecision and indifference but in the ambiguity there is truth in all its invariate complexity as well.
speaking japanese to children (who are simple, and straightforward, and direct, who speak casually and plainly on a linguistic level) versus speaking children to adults (who politely obscure through layers of courtesy and keigo) is two different worlds, and speaking to teenagers is navigating that ambiguity of "how much do I obscure? and how much do i reveal?"
and the SHEER INTIMACY of geto and gojo calling each other by their first names despite the friction between them, geto deeply resenting gojo's arrogance but also being drawn in irrevably by his magnitude...
it's immense.
geto and gojo calling each other by their first names means that they are each other's most precious person. as intimate as you can ever get with another human being. it's not just a "cute party trick" or a "fun fiction trope for couples" it's like, an extremely intimate way of defining their relationship (and subtextually defining it as one of deep, severe love that surpasses 'bromance' or however else you want to superficially and non homosexually categorize it) it just...
geto and gojo calling each other by their first names shows the viewer how much they love each other and are in love.
i'll talk about it another time, but jujutsu kaisen is a deeply encoded series about decrypting the cipher of "symbols" and various other coded messages, particularly queer ones, that are so deeply encrypted that shounen jump doesn't register it as "actually really fucking homosexual / transgender"
but just. i can't express to you how painful watching...geto's resentment, his desire to be as special and necessary and desirable and wanted instead of swallowing vomit stained rags and viscera and vermin, and feeling dirty because of it. and hating the world. and feeling deeply and intimately that you are an unnecessary existence, annihilated by the shining bright light of your best friend who you are deeply in love with but who without even blinking an eye outshines you, outclasses you, doesn't ever and may have never needed you at all.
these things...these deep held vulnerabilities and open wound of insecurities, this fundamental lack of security in the necessity of his own existence, imo calls back to okkotsu's themes of wishing to have the permission to live (i want to feel as though it is okay to live).
these things make geto vulnerable to cult tactics. who will convince you that you're special, necessary, more necessary than anyone, the way cults build a "family" out of it is too true, so true, too much, the way geto financially exploits his followers as well as manipulating advantage out of them (swallowing curses) while presenting himself as a buddha....
the way geto sincerely loves his family, so so much, he cares about them so deeply...but like gojo says love is the most perverse curse of all, and geto's love for them...who can say what it is, other than love.
the perversion of love is love, too.
the thing about "families" like geto's is that they are sincere, and real, and true, but you can't leave, you can never leave once you get in there, they won't let you leave alive, and that is the shape of geto's love, it requires absolute devotion to him and his curse, those girls he saved, mimiko and nanako, his daughters, say that "if geto-sama says black is white and white is black, then it is" because he saved them...
but geto requires complete and absolute conviction in himself and in his cause, and anything less will result in execution.
in such "factions," there is more loyalty than you will ever see in the world. but more blood, too. to be loved utterly and completely in a way that requires absolute devotion and conviction with no room for even a sliver of doubt. to be loved like that is a perversion, but to be loved like that is to be loved absolutely.
i have been loved like that, and i will never love or be loved like that again.
geto: won't you curse me a little, at the end?
gojo: love is the most perverse curse of all.
they love each other at the end, they still love each other, and in jjk0 when gojo is talking to yaga, he still calls geto "suguru," because gojo still loves him, and gojo says suguru is "his only best friend," it's so...it's so incredibly vivid, and painful, and damning.
gojo without suguru is absolutely alone. there is no one to match him, and there is no one to stay with him, be with him, there is no one to celebrate his successes or criticize his failures or play with him and let him be silly and coquettish, there is no one to be with him at all. gojo is LITERALLY untouchable, and the same is true on an emotional/metaphorical level too.
no one can touch gojo. no one.
this makes gojo...more isolated than any could know.
(laughing) it's lonely at the top.
suguru's era where he is a cultrunner is where kenjaku, who has been described to me as 'the ancient curse spirit of guanyin' i think begins to coalesce inside him.
suguru's entire thing with the stitches on his forehead and that image of him revealing the curse in his brain. that's literally just DID of kenjaku taking over the person that used to be geto. but i think kenjaku was there before, nascent. growing.
jjk in many facets is a DID narrative. this is just the plain and simple truth regardless of if your belief follows mine or not. it is my truth, but i believe it is a textual truth as well. rika is okkotsu's alter; she protects okkotsu severely to the point she won't even let him commit suicide, she stops him, okkotsu created her, he is terrified of her but she protects him at all costs. okkotsu is a severe child on child violence victim.
and so in junpei, who dies because (imo) she can't form an alter, so she represents the child on child abuse victim who is groomed until death. my thesis on trans junpei and trans megumi coming later.
and ofc yuuji and sukuna. yuuji who after eating sukuna's finger knocks on his head and says "yeah, but he's kind of annoying. i can hear his voice," and the implications that no one else can see sukuna's tattoos except the reader.
if gojo, the strongest, with six eyes, can't tell the difference between a clearly inked out curse marked sukuna and yuuji who doesn't have any such thing, if he has to ask, then i think there's no stronger indicator of their difference other than visually, for the reader.
not to mention that sukuna even in his mind palace looks identical to yuuji. if this were a typical "possession" narrative then why would he, in his literal "mind palace" (ryouiki tenkai / that space inside himself where he speaks to yuuji), like why would he independently of yuuji where he could look like anyone in the world. choose to look like slobbering ouppy dog boy silly yuuji.
sukuna IS yuuji, or who yuuji could be. or who exists, so yuuji can exist independently as he is, in all his naivete and instinctual dependence rather than on his mind (sukuna possesses all the cunning).
and sukuna even makes that deal in one of the early episodes where he can have five minutes to do what he wants / take over for five minutes, and then makes yuuji forget it, to the point gojo asks him what he talks about with sukuna, and yuuji says he forgot / can't remember.
DID amnesia.
and at the very last episode in the hallway where yuuji is talking to sukuna alone as though they have spoken together a thousand times. yuuji telling sukuna he can't tell megumi about the truth regarding the curses. that scene's framing just...suggests that yuuji has a lot of off-screen conversations with sukuna. that yuuji uncharacteristically somber and serious. collaborating with sukuna. as a part of him.
and that mahito arc, with mahito commenting on the way that yuuji and sukuna are two souls.
jujutsu kaisen is everything to me. i see it in some ways as a recounting / prediction of places have been in my mind / and places i will be. because i see it as a history so similar to mine, i see my own future in it. is this crazy? OF COURSE IT IS. but it is one of the most precious and sacred things to me.
but, believe me or not, these things and thoughts remain true regardless of the silence that awakens in the absence of belief, these thoughts are mine and the truth i see / seek in jujutsu kaisen...is my own path, my own journey, for me.
but i did want to share any thoughts...about the things i see/seek in jjk. just for myself. but if anyone wants to see, so be it, too. maybe it'll make you think regardless of if you agree.
i love jujutsu kaisen. i think in many ways...it saved my life. it still is saving my life.
i hope i can see it to its end.