January 5th, 2016

Tokyo Ghoul: re Kaneki's true personality

At the time of this post, the latest Tokyo Ghoul: re chapter is chapter 59. Spoilers for those who has not read up to that point to Tokyo Ghoul: re.You have been warned... (also tldr at bottom)A few chapters back, we get the reveal that Kaneki's real memories were repressed and we find out that his mother used to beat him as a child. Then, with his hair stained with blood, his "true" personality emerges and ever since then, the manga readers have not been able to truly understand out beloved main character's current personality. However, I believe that this whole thing has been foreshadowed in part one of the manga, and we have had a glimpse into Kaneki's true personality in part one.His true personality is none other than the Rize persona that appears when Kaneki was tortured by Jason in part one.Let me explain. . .Let's begin by saying that the Rize that was tormenting Kaneki during the torture scene is not the real Rize. It is just a 'personality' within Kaneki that has taken the shape of Rize. It took the image of Rize because this personality was the one that cruelly took Kaneki out of the life he was comfortable with, just like how the real Rize did.The first clue we get is in Tokyo Ghoul: re chapter 53, where Kaneki emulates the Rize persona by repeating the words she said to him.This is something I see as out of character from Kaneki. Obviously, the black haired Kaneki in part one would never say something like this. While you might think that the white haired Kaneki might say something like this, I think that is not true. While white haired Kaneki was heartless against his enemies, instead of he blaming his friend's weaknesses, he would blame himself for not being strong enough. This is shown in the Anteiku raid arc where Kaneki ends up blaming himself for not being able to save Yoshimura. Rather than merging with the Rize personality, the white-haired Kaneki was a product of brainwashing by Rize.Much like the current Kaneki personality, the Rize persona was heartless.While facing a broken, tortured Kaneki, rather than encouraging or helping him, she laughs at his face.Finally, this:As we have established, Rize is only a part of Kaneki's consciousness, meaning she knows as much as Kaneki should know. And yet, she is shown to question his mother's kind spirit. Rize is the part of Kaneki's consciousness that knows that his mother is not the kind person Kaneki remembers her to be, but this part of his consciousness is being pushed away by Kaneki's unwillingness to accept that reality.Also, to connect why Rize's questioning his mother's kindness to her giving money to his sister:We see here that Kaneki was beating by his mom and under it, we see Kaneki begging his mother, saying "I don't want it anymore." Yet, depite being so unwilling to buy Kaneki stuff he wants, she was so willing to give away money to his sister.Conclusion/tldr:The Rize personality that we saw while Kaneki was being tortured in part one is the personality that Kaneki currently (as of Tokyo Ghoul chapter 59) has.Also, if we ever see Rize again and her personality is completely different from the one we saw with Kaneki at the torture scene, don't be surprised because her personality during the torture scene was Kaneki's projection of her and not actually her.