iirc, hermann hesse's demian was mentioned in tokyo ghoul manga, right ?_?

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Anonymous

Anon you make my heart burn (did you figure out after my other literature posts that I love to talk about this stuff ;D).

Yes, it was mentioned in TG, but it’s not the quote “The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world” why I’m so happy that you send me this message because a lot of people already talked about it.

There’s another reason why I think Hermann Hesse’s Demian shows us once again how scary Ishida can be. And do you want to know the reason? I think we should have expected that Hide will disappear at the end of the manga and that Sasaki Haise will resemble him (not just because Kaneki tends to imitate traits or because of his better life at the start of :Re (his ‘happy dream’)). It’s once again because of foreshadowing. Demian might even explain why it will take some time till Hide appears again (I still believe he’s alive).

Ishida uses literature references a lot, but I think people should know it’s not only the mentioned quote which tells us more about the story, but the whole book/poem etc. can be seen as a form of foreshadowing (for example Crossbread can be seen as a parallel between Arima and Sasaki).

So let’s talk a bit about Herman Hesse’s Demian. The quote was mentioned in chapter 8 during Kaneki’s and Nishiki’s fight after Kaneki realized that Hide saved him a lot of times. Demian is also a story about the struggle between two worlds (world of illusion vs. the real world). And it’s really interesting that the friendship between the two main characters Emil Sinclair and Max Demian shows parallels to Kaneki’s and Hide’s friendship (I think it’s not a coincidence that the quote appeared in a chapter where Hide plays a role because Sinclair (the person who Kaneki shows similarities to) reads this quote on a piece of paper which is actually from Demian (the person who shows similarities to Hide).

I couldn’t stop myself. I had to write a long post about this. Not sure if anyone will even read all of this, but it’s really one of the many reasons why I love Ishida so much.

Emil Sinclair (Kaneki) and Demian (Hide):

Emil is the protagonist of the novel and Demian is his childhood friend. Both meet each other because Franz Kromer bullied Emil (Hide noticed that Kaneki doesn’t have friends and often defended him). Like Hide, Demian is also a new pupil. Both Demian and Hide influence their friends in some ways (even when they are not present).

This post would turn out even longer if I talk about all the similarities, so I will just talk about the most important ones and use a lot of quotes from the book later.

(I will put this under a read more once again)

First the foreshadowing part about what can be already seen as a parallel.

There’s a part in Demian where Emil goes to a boarding school and he completely changes. His problems start to accumulate and he isolates himself from other people and even says that he feels a great longing for his friend Demian (sounds similar to what happened after Kaneki became a ghoul; it’s just a bit different in Demian because at the same time Emil also develops a grudge against Demian > Emil writes a letter to Demian twice and doesn’t get a reply etc. ).

But now the most interesting part. The end of Demian shows similarities to the last scene between Hide and Kaneki.

The first world war breaks out and Demian and Emil see each other for the last time in a lazaret (military hospital). Like Kaneki, Emil is really wounded and Emil and Demian see each other finally again. In the last scene Demian gives Emil a kiss in the name of Demian’s mother (she’s the one Emil idealises/loves) “Frau Eva said that if ever you were in a bad way I was to give you a kiss from her that she sends by me”. But Demian also says “Close your eyes, Sinclair!” and now look what Emil tells us “ I felt a light kiss on my lips where there was always a little fresh blood which never would go away. And then I fell asleep. Next morning someone woke me: I had to have my wounds dressed. When I was finally wide awake I turned quickly to the mattress next to mine. On it lay a stranger I’d never seen before. Dressing the wound hurt. Everything that has happened to me since has hurt. ” (In TG Kaneki loses consciousness and after waking up Hide also disappeared and it looks like Hide treated his wounds. Furthermore, Kaneki also tells us that the sweet taste of blood lingered in his mouth).

Even before this scene there’s another scene which is similar to what happened in the end of TG. There’s a scene where Emil thinks about his life and later sees Frau Eva in the sky. Of course not everything can be seen as a direct parallel, but it’s still similar to the scene in which Kaneki hallucinates Rize and Yamori and even thinks about the people who are important to him.

And there are parts in Demian which sound once again like passages which could be from Kaneki. Just one example : “For days on end voices within preoccupied me, inner streams, the forbidden dark streams that roared below the surface… I had lost any charm I might ever have had and felt that no one could possibly love me the way I was”.



If we see Demian as a parallel to Hide then this means that he maybe didn’t die (it is not explicitly said if Demian is dead in the end or not) and now comes the part why I think Demian tells us even more about TG.

It’s these passages here: 1. Demian says this before the kiss : “Little fellow, ” he said, smiling. His lips lay very close to mine. Quietly he continued to speak. “Can you remember Franz Kromer?” he asked, I blinked at him and smiled, too. “Little Sinclair, listen: I will have to go away. Perhaps you’ll need me again sometime, against Kromer or something. If you call me then I won’t come crudely, on horseback or by train. You’ll have to listen within yourself, then you will notice that I am within you. Do you understand?”

2. Emil says this at the end “ But sometimes when I find the key and climb deep into myself where the images of fate lie aslumber in the dark mirror, I need only bend over that dark mirror to behold my own image, now completely resembling him, my brother, my master.” > Hide is more bubbly than Kaneki and touches his cheek while thinking about something. Hide’s hair has two colours. Haise is now similar in these aspects.

Critics describe Demian as a story about a protagonist who develops into a mature and self-reflective person. At the end of the story Emil is able to go his own way because Demain (his friend who he also sees as a mentor) became a part of him. I won’t analyse these last passages now and I’m not saying Hide won’t return (Ishida just uses once again ideas and not direct parallels), but what I’m trying to say here is that Ishida’s foreshadowing is absolutely fantastic.

Now some other facts about Demian (the story): Herman Hesse’s Demian is a Bildungsroman (novel of education/coming of age story > I would really recommend to read the part after plot outline (x)) and is certainly influenced by the psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung. Women also play a vital role in Demian AND a common motive in German literature is “the reading hero” (the protagonist is portrayed as someone who reads).

Yes, I hope Demian by Herman Hesse is a sign that our protagonist will be able to save himself in the end.

And now a really nice quote:

“Some never become human, remaining frog, lizard, ant. Some are human above the waist, fish below. Each represents a gamble on the part of nature in creation of the human. We all share the same origin, our mothers ; all of us come in at the same door. But each of us–experiments of the depths–strives toward his own destiny. We can understand one another; but each of us is able to interpret himself to himself alone.”

Not sure if you read this Anon, but thank you!