Jjk Hidden Inventory - Blog Posts
- On the Themes of Love, Vulnerability and Blindfolds in Jujutsu Kaisen -
-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-
TAGS/WARNINGS- Implied/Slight spoilers for the Jjk Anime and Manga.
THESE ARE THOUGHTS THAT I WAS HAVING THAT I STRUNG TOGETHER- please don't come at me about the working I already know it's horrible.
((if you want to add one your own takes or pick apart mine, please do so cuz I eat this shit up like food on thanksgiving (and tag me I wanna see what you come up with))
-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-
Love
Vulnerability
Blind love
Love is blind
Justice is blind
Love is not Justice and v.v.
(Justice and Love are two sides of the same coin but this is a conversation for another day)
-
Justice is impartial
"Lady Justice wears a blindfold to represent impartial justice and everyday people close their eyes to shield themselves from reality"
-
Gojo is not Justice
Gojo is Jusitce
Gojo is not impartial- he uses a blindfold to create a physical barrier between himself and others.
Gojo wears a blindfold to keep his memory of Geto in
Gojo wears a blindfold like a mask; a personally built facade to keep others out
Gojo harbours immense and infinite cursed energy
Gojo harbors immense and infinite love
Gojo's birth caused a boom in cursed energy/spirits to appear
Geto was born to mitigate (swallow) all of it
Geto was born to cancel out the effects of Gojo's birth
Geton was born to accept Gojo's love
-
Gojo's immense and infinite love/cursed energy was meant for someone who is no longer with us;
He uses it sparringly
Basically never•
Few and far between•
Taking off the blindfold means to be vulnerable
Gojo has his blindfold off when he runs into Kenjaku (in his pov, it was Geto)
Gojo is vulnerable around Geto.
-
Vulnerability is a weakness
-
'Curses that work together in groups are weak'
Groups are weak
To Sukuna, Yuji making friends practically wherever he goes is a sign of weakness
But Yuji is strong
He subdues Sukuna for the greater part of the entire story
-
Yuji and his friends are strong together
There is strength in numbers
-
It's lonely at the top
It's lonely being the strongest
-
Love means to be vulnerable and compromise strength in lieu of compassion and connection
Sukuna tries to 'connect' but is pushed away when his methods don't work
Sukuna uses extreme violence to play with and 'connect' to others
Most individuals don't want to connect that way
Sukuna doesn't use Yuji's methids of connection because that goes against everything he stands for
-
Love is the worst curse of them all
-
Who will teach Sukuna love?
Sukuna does not need to be taught love;
He has no use for it
___ will teach ___ (Sukuna) love
Sukuna is the strongest sorcerer in history
Sukuna is the King if Curses
Sukuna is the King of Love
-
Sacrifices
-
In order to make one, you need to sacrifice something
How much has Sukuna sacrificed to become the strongest?
-
Binding Vows
-
Love means to make sacrifieces
Love means to make sacrifices
Love means to be vulnerable
Gojo sacrificed Geto (and his love) for the greater good (and for other obvious reason)
Gojo loved Geto
Gojo cannot stand out when paired with Geto
-
Hidden Inventory Arc (anime) - Gojo's eyes seem duller and less illustrious than usual,
-
Gojo stands out when Geto is not around
Gojo is The Strongest
The Strongest isn't vulnerable
Gojo is vulnerable with Geto
-
Sukuna believes vulnerablility is weak
Yuji wears his heart on his sleeve
-
Gojo closed his heart.away after Geto died
Gojo never puts down infinity again (with minor exceptions)
Gojo wears a blindfold to keep others out
Taking off the blindfold means to be vulnerable
-
Vulnerability is a weakness
-
*The suffix -utl, "Something and nothing at once, polar opposites existing simultaneously."*
Love-utl
-
Sukuna does not love
Sukuna hates Yuji
Gojo can love, chooses not to
-
Love is sacrifice
Sukuna doesn't love anyone but himself
Sukuna rejected and sacrificed his previous (human) identity for his cursed one
Sukuna loves himself
Gojo loves loved Geto
Goji is immensely fond of others (his students/close friends)
Yuji loves (pretty much) everyone
-
Gojo/Sukuna/Yuji is the strongest
-
1. Love is sacrifice
- Gojo sacrificed Geto; his love
- Sukuna sacrificed everything else; his humanity
- Yuji sacrificed his previous peaceful life so he could save more people in his sorcerer life
2. Love is vulnerability
- Gojo swore to never be vulnerable again; his love came back to bite him again in his adult years and he payed the price for it; love is weakness
- Sukuna is not vulnerable; it is a weakness; the weak should die
- Yuji is vulnerable with his friends and is always ready to use his compassion for the best outcome; Yuji is open with his companions
3. Love is the worst curse of them all
- Love took the only person that could accept him; Gojo rarely uses love anymore
- Sukuna is the King of Curses, therefore the King of Love by proxy; Sukuna hates love; doesn't need to be taught it; Sukuna hates Yuji
- Yuji harbors the King of Curses
- Yuji defeated the King of Love
-
Love is the worst curse of them all
-
Love is not a curse
Love is strength
There is strength in numbers
Groups- together, connection, vulnerability, sacrifice- are strength
Yuji is/has all of these
Yuji is strong
Yuji defeated the King of Curses
Yuji harbors immense love
Sukuna hates love
Sukuna hates Yuji
Love is the worst curse of them all
Yuji is the worst curse of them all
Yuji is strong
Love is strength
Love is vulnerable
Yuji is both,
Love-utl,
Yuji is love
Yuji is The Strongest
--- Notes ---
*Please see (Tess of the Road, Rachel Hartman)
•"Basically never - few and far between":
I was making a reference to Gojo's infinity, how no one could ever get close to him. Fitting, no?
Choice - Jack Stauber
Part 3
Love
Brain
Heart
WAKE UP
SMACK
Part 4 link:
Choice - Jack Stauber
Part 2
Caffinate
You get me going
...
Brain
Heart
Control
Caffinate
Melatonin
Part 3 link:
A lot of interesting thoughts here, and no hate to either of the accounts, just wanted to address the point about Gojo not noticing Geto’s depression.
(Long post ahead; tldr at the bottom)
I think it’s important to recognize that 1) Geto’s descent is incredibly stark for us with the year-long gap (a perspective Gojo doesn’t have), and 2) that this section of the story is told from Geto’s perspective.
That second point is particularly important, bc we can see from the narrative how Geto self-isolates. He doesn’t confide in anyone about his growing hatred and anger, his loneliness, or the real cause of his weight loss. Instead he goes through what is clearly PTSD, and lets himself shatter before anyone around him is aware there’s a real problem. So yes, from Geto’s perspective, Gojo seems distant and uncaring. He also seems relatively unaffected by the SPV mission, as if he’s only become stronger for those events, more untouchable.
But I don’t think this is accurate to what Gojo really felt. It’s made abundantly clear throughout the narrative that Geto’s abandonment seriously affected Gojo, and influenced a lot of who he became afterward. His change from “We’re the strongest,” to “I’m the strongest,” is usually commented on as one of the representations of that change. But there’s another driver there, which is hinted at in one of his early conversations with Megumi:
Looking back, we know Gojo is speaking from personal experience in this scene. We also know that this mindset is a drastic shift for him. Teen Gojo was perfectly willing to leave himself vulnerable knowing Geto would be there with him.
While this scene is meant to show how much Gojo trusts and relies on Geto specifically, the fact that he’s willing to rely on anyone to this extent is a huge contrast with the conversation shown above.
So Gojo has a brush with death, and comes out of it with the realization that, in that decisive moment, it doesn’t matter who his allies are. The moment of his death is only his to experience, and only his to escape (if he can).
His abandonment of Geto wasn’t a lack of care, it was his own response to the traumatic events of Hidden Inventory. Geto witnessed three people he cared for murdered by a non-sorcerer, and spent a year harboring unbearable anger as he recontextualized the world around that reality: that non-sorcerers lead to the misery and death of sorcerers. Gojo, on the other hand, was one of those murdered sorcerers. And he had to live with his own new reality: that if he wants to survive, he can only really rely on himself.
Yes, Gojo’s new commitment to developing his power is a direct response to being defeated for the first time, but it isn’t as simple as losing in a spar. Gojo had to contend with his own death in a very real way, and was clearly changed by that experience. He likely felt he had to be more powerful and more self-reliant, and became set on preventing any repeat of that event. This is something Geto can’t see clearly, because he’s experiencing his own post-traumatic changes. As a result, he overestimates Gojo’s stability, and abandons him, driving him deeper into isolation and hyper-independence.
So it’s not just Gojo who abandons Geto. Essentially, both of them are too busy with their own shit to see what the other is going through, and they move further into their problematic coping strategies, expecting the other to get along without them. Inevitably, they just end up pushing each other further away and deeper into their respective hellholes. Geto’s hellhole just so happens to be the one we’re shown in more detail.
Those are just my thoughts though - happy to hear other opinions!
tldr: Gojo also experiences a massive worldview shift post-Hidden Inventory, it’s just less obvious than Geto’s bc of the perspective we’re given as readers/viewers. In reality, they both unintentionally abandon each other, and they both suffer for it.
Why is Satoru so fixated on this idea of “never letting anyone be alone again”?
The answer at face value is obvious, Suguru was alone after they started taking solo missions, but let’s really talk about the gravity of that statement, and also the relevance that Shoko’s “I was there too, you weren’t alone” has with this concept.
I’ll be discussing the manga so spoilers if you aren’t caught up:
This analysis cooks I tell you
In Jujukai 0, Satoru sees that Yuuta tried killing himself with a knife to prevent hurting other people. He wants to confine himself completely and be alone, exactly like what Suguru had to go through a decade earlier. Satoru recognizes this and forces Yuuta to join the first years so that he won’t be alone and face the same descent into madness that Suguru did. He feels that he failed Suguru, and this is shown time and time again throughout the story, such as here:
Here, Satoru had a discussion with Shoko, who is remembering that conversation. He said that he’ll raise the next crop of sorcerers to be allies so no one will be alone (his prime motivation for everything), and then Shoko responds effectively, “I’d never fall in love with either of you, but even still, I was still there, you weren’t alone”
But she isn’t recognizing the full meaning behind Satoru’s words. Because what happened after Satoru became the strongest? This became his belief:
He advanced at such a quick rate that he left Suguru in the dust. And that caused both of them to be alone. He was alone in being the strongest, and Suguru was alone in being unable to reach that same level, alone to deal with curses on solo missions, and alone in his descent of madness. It drove them apart, and got in between their bond.
I think Shoko recognizes that much. But I thought it was weird when she suddenly said “I’d never fall in love with either of you” because it was like…well, yeah, but why say that? Bringing up love seemed kind of random and out of place.
And then I realized it’s because she recognizes that Satoru and Suguru were in love with each other. Being in love with someone means that you feel a certain level of depth unmatched with anyone else. You feel like the two of you are at the top of the world, or in your very own world, apart from the rest, completely untouchable. Time and time again we see this shown throughout Satoru and Suguru’s interactions.
That is what Shoko means when she says “I’d never fall in love with either of you”. She’s saying “I recognize that I never felt the kind of love you two had for each other, but you were still never alone.”
And I get that. But because she doesn’t comprehend the bond they had (and really, she couldn’t, because the only ones who can truly feel it are the two of them), Satoru and Suguru really were alone once they split up. Maybe not physically, but emotionally, they were all alone.
And Satoru left Suguru first. Not physically, but emotionally. Because of the stark difference in their abilities. And that is what lead Suguru down his dark path, because he felt alone, and Satoru wasn’t there to chase away his contempt for non-sorcerers like he used to.
When Satoru says he wants to raise strong allies so no one is alone, he’s saying that he wants no one to be the strongest, he wants everyone to be at the same level, so that there’s no barriers, there’s no blind reliance on power causing someone to take what they have in front of them for granted like he did to Suguru.
That’s why this hits harder given that context:
“Trust, huh? To think you still had some of that for me.”
Suguru spent these last 10 years thinking that Satoru didn’t trust him, didn’t need to, because of the difference in their abilities. Why trust someone else when you need only rely on your own powers? Or, in the animated version, Suguru says,
“You want to talk about trust? I didn’t think I still had any of that left, with the shit I went through.”
Satoru left him alone when he “alone became the honored one,” breaking Suguru’s trust. From that point, he didn’t pay real attention to Suguru. When he asked Suguru “have you lost weight? Are you okay?” And accepted Suguru’s half-baked answer, that showed Suguru that Satoru didn’t really care. Or at least, wasn’t paying enough attention to know something was seriously wrong. Broken trust. Satoru had abandoned him and their bond.
Too late, Satoru recognizes this. And he makes his vow to raise the next generation to be strong allies so that no one gets left behind like Suguru or isolated and “special” like himself. You can even see it when he decides to put Itadori in the room right next to Megumi. He never wants it to happen again.