On Narrators, Observers and the Sun Arc

So for once I’m going to make a meta on how things might not be as bad as they look. It’s shocking, I know. There’s something I’ve noticed though, that was revealed this chapter that I have not seen anybody else talking about.

That the narrator who carries such an objective and flourishing style in narration that was almost absent from Tokyo Ghoul with the exception of the end of chapter and beginning of chapter brief segments, is none other than Furuta himself. Not only that but for most of the time, these narrations are completely objective and more descriptive of the situation around him rather than Furuta’s actual thoughts and emotions.

Clickbait title: why is naki going to survive? Find out below.

These boxes go so far as to describe exposition about Zero Squad, and Juuzou and describe Furuta as if he were a character in the narrative as well, before revealing that this was all actually Furuta’s personal narration.

Which means these objective narration boxes that have been appearing ever since Furuta took control of the CCG at the end of the clown raid arc, are all Furuta’s narration, except in the instances where it’s obviously Naki and Kaneki describing their own emotions later on in this chapter. So, this one:

And this one:

I’m quite confident in this assertion, as these narrative boxes despite being objective third person narrators never describe things that Furuta would not reasonably know. Yet at the same time, they also describe things that only Furuta could know.

After all why is the objective narrator talking about Future events that have not happened in story yet, if we know that Furuta was the last bureau chief just from the narration alone that would be the story spoiling itself. Unless, that was exactly what Furuta planned himself to become.

Even Ui’s own personal realization here, is not done in Ui’s voice. it’s commented upon like a third person objective observer. Furuta could reasonably know what Ui came to the conclusion of here, because Furuta is manipulating Ui into believing these things.

There are many who refer to Tokyo Ghoul: Re as ‘not a tragedy unlike the first one’. I find that far too unspecific a genre though. To me, the story has always read as a battle of narratives.

If 85 made anything clear, it’s that the narrative purpose of Kaneki from the beginning was for him to take up the title of one eyed King. The series was named after the concept after all. Regardless of whether you think Kaneki makes a good king, his entire narrative arc builds up to that role, and the current path that he is on requires him to eventually grow into the role of King if he wants the happy future.

Eto’s narration even suggests that Kaneki may even be able to step away from the throne of king eventually, but it all requires him to be able to accept the title, live up to it, and make choices.

However, Kaneki’s narrative arc is stalled and complicated by the fact that the moment after he became king, another king arrived on the scene and completely stole the show. Before he could even make his first move, Furuta acting as a second one eyed king began to complicate things and limited the steps he was able to take until he was almost completely without agency.

As Ayato himself declares, before Goat was even able to do anything Goat was immediately painted as bad guys, and brutal rebels that were worth wiping out. Even Kaneki’s attempts to distance themselves, and make the point of how peaceful Goat was in comparison to the clown rebels was ineffectual at best, and did not change the minds of any investigators who eventually signed on for the eventual Goat 24th ward raid.

Kaneki had absolutely no control over how the public saw Goat, and how they saw ghouls as a whole. In other words, despite stepping up to lead his own rebellion Kaneki completely lost control of the narrative. This is a narrative battle, between Kaneki’s want to fight against tragedy, and Furuta’s want to fall to it. The purpose of Kaneki’s narrative was laid out bare enough by the clowns as early as chapter 13.

Kaneki is someone who struggles against Tragedy. Despite all of the facts of his narrative that Kaneki embraces his own agency less state, despite his suicidal ideation, there is always a part of Kaneki that still fights to live. This conflict is what drives his existence.

Furuta on the other hand is very much about embracing death. If the hanged man’s noose is something that Kaneki constantly fret and worries over. Furuta enjoys it, he embraces it, he wears it like a neck tie, a part of his attire.

It’s heavily hinted too, and has been picked up by a few more meta writers other than me, that Furuta’s ultimate goal is not really retaining control of the Washuu, or wiping out Goat but rather setting the stage for his own death. That is a reflection of what Kaneki’s goal was in the fight against Arima. Being able to perfectly control the circumstances of his own death, and die while he’s still loved by everyone around him.

I couldn’t care less what comes after, here dragon will…

The phrasing here mirrors Kaneki’s own when he discusses with Eto, what he was planning to do after the Prison Raid.

Therefore it’s likely the elipsses are leading off to Furuta saying “Dragon will kill me.” Which means if all goes according to plan, Furuta will have achieved his perfectly written tragedy. Goat will be provoked, Kaneki finally will directly confront Furuta and possibly end his life in public.

It seems Kaneki was already beginning to think along those lines anyway. The moon arc is in a way, all about narratives. The temptation is for characters to think narratively, and become obsessed with their own narrative composed inside of their heads. It’s something Furuta even mocks.

Which means, if Furuta were to get exactly what he wanted, a death that goes according to his own plans where he is sitting at the center of the stage, as the fully realized he would have won essentially and Kaneki would have lost.

Tokyo Ghoul is still a tragedy, all of the characters are still contained in the cage of genre, and nobody can break through and escape. It’s actually quite a depressing ending, even if it would end with something so simple as the villain dying.

Let’s talk about the clowns for a second, the ones who most carefully follow the idea that you can treat life as a narrative that will always stick to narrative conventions.

The clowns seem pretty united themselves in agreeing that the demise of Goat will be a good show to watch. That was something I was convinced of myself, except for two suddenly out of place things.

Roma’s sudden death despite the reveal of the importance and depth of her character, and also the chapter title to 139.

He laughs

The clowns having the last laugh is pretty much their catchphrase, but there was not a single clown even pictured in that chapter. 140, which heavily featured Furuta mainly going uninterrupted in his plans would have been a much more appropriate time to have the chapter title he laughs.

However, if you think thematically just like the clowns would, these pieces can be assembled together. Let’s analyze the clowns ideology laid out to us by Nico for a second. Who really is our introduction to the clowns.

Otherwise, if you can’t live an entertaining enough life yourself, then you can get by on observing others. All of the clowns are people who are left out of society, and make up for it by finding subsistence in observing others. It was started out by Roma, who was jealous because she had no points of attachment, or nothing to distract herself from the existentialist questions of life unlike all of the spoiled and privileged humans all around her. They were all able to put on a show to distract themselves, so for Roma they became her show.

Roma does not care about her own confinement or even her own lack of involvement in things as long as she has something to watch.

She’s the originator of the clown’s ideology and therefore the most hardcore believer in it. Roma would never accept a world that was changed for the better, a world of acceptance for ghoulkind because to her that would be much less fun. Her ultimate objective is to simply revel in the cage, to her there’s no meaning in life besides that.

She alligns herself with Furuta so hard, even revealing her Kakuja and taking fights seriously because she knows what Furuta is fighting for is not truly a change in the world, but rather to revel inside of the cage just the same as her.

[x] @tgcalendar2016

On the same end, the clowns who are most loyal to Furuta the ones he uses the most frequently to do his bidding are all equally as unhinged as Roma. There is Rio who has just completely lost his mind at this point and cannot make any decisions.

Then there is Donato, who seems caught up in his feelings of revenge towards the world for both disturbing his peace, and also his time with Amon Koutarou a person he genuinely grew attached to, to do anything substantial besides or challenge his clown mindset.

Donato is driven almost entirely by personal emotion and fulfillment in this conflict, and yet still positions himself as an outsider. The paradox there is obvious, and it’s likely that this mindset of Donato’s will crash in on himself as well as his unshakeable confidence.

So out of six clowns not counting Furuta we have three that are narratively doomed, Roma because she forced herself to become too insignificant and therefore died just as insignificant, Donato because it’s likely he will flip the opposite and become too emotionally involved in a conflict the clown’s are meant to keep their distance from, and Rio who is once again crazy and unable to decide for himself.

On the flip side though, there are three clowns who still might make significant actions and act to influence the narrative. The question is, why would they do that?

They find a tragic ending to be a boring one. Uta remarks at the end of Tokyo Ghoul, that tragedies aren’t popular and immediately afterwards we get a hint that Kaneki might still live.

This is the motivation between for my oft predicted sun arc. Where the clowns’ appear to finally shed light on what was otherwise a dark narrative.

Because for them, that is the more well balanced clowns it’s simply more fun to keep the story going.

Uta and Itori are a bit more inscrutable when it comes to their motives as they have almost no narrative reveals about their characters at all, so let’s focus on Nico for a second.

If Roma is the most clownish, the most destructive, the most off kilter of the clowns, then it makes sense that her polar opposite would be someone who is able to apply the clown’s ideology to life in a less destructive way.

Nico’s kagune is a healing one, it’s just as capable of destruction as it is reconstruction. Not only that, but he does have a limit. He expresses both reluctance and regret when Yamori pushes him too far.

The clown’s viewpoint is objectively a nihilistic one, that there is no real meaning to life so therefore they should treat it like a fictional narrative. Nico goes one step beyond it though, he gives that narrative meaning. That is to say he creates his own meaning, despite still feeling emptiness.

Like a person, Nico still feels emotions and tries to cover up his own emptiness. Rather unlike the rest of the clowns who embrace their emptiness wholeheartedly, and therefore entirely deny their emotions as people. Nico represents what a well balanced clown would be like, ideally someone who still sees emptiness in life, but uses the tropes and narrative conventions to give their own lives meaning in a self aware way rather than to take meaning away from others.

The clowns deny that they are people, that they are a part of this narrative, that they are on the stage. Roma only stepped on the stage when she finally decided it was exciting enough to be worth the risk of getting close. As Uta points out, the clowns are outsiders, reprobates. It gives them unique perspective over characters all caught up in their own narratives but it also makes them observers unable to fulfill their own lives or cure their own loneliness. Seeing themselves as observers is how they become okay with something like witnessing the destruction of ghoul kind even though they themselves are obviously ghouls.

Nico has already shown though, that the clowns are willing to work outside of Furuta’s goal for a better show.

Itori already confirmed, that the clowns know where the 24th ward is outside of Furuta’s information from Hajime.

The pieces are in place for the clowns to be able to make a choice. The three clowns doing so, Uta and Itori both have a personal attachment to Renji, and Nico is the most well balanced of the clowns. They might choose finally to bring about a change in the tides for Goat.

As pointed out in chapter 128, Uta seemed rather bored at the prospect of Furuta simply ending things with Kaneki just like that, putting the beleaguered starving ghouls out of their misery.

Whether it’s because tragedies nowadays are not popular, or because they have genuine emotional attachment to some of the Goat members, the clowns who can overcome the destructiveness of the clown’s ideology might still intervene in things to provide much needed hope and closure for goat.

Why the Sun?

The sun has always been a symbol associated with Uta from the start. It is the tattoo he wears on his chest, directly over his heart ironically enough. There are hints that the moon arc is coming to an end, and that dragon whatever it is will be the last swing of the pendulum.

The Sun is an image of optimism and fulfilment, the dawn that follows the darkest night. As the source of all life on earth, the Sun represents the source of life itself. The child playing joyfully in the foreground represents the happiness of our inner spirit when we are in tune with our truest Self. He is naked, having nothing to hide. He has all the innocence and purity of childhood. The white horse upon which the child rides represents strength and purity of spirit. . The horse is without a saddle and is controlled without the use of the hands. This is a symbol of perfect control between the conscious and subconscious.



We have a few things that are already hints of the sun arc coming into fruition. There’s an infant (touka’s pregnancy). However, the ultimate coming of the sun would be a balance between conscious and subconscious, and as we see even as Kaneki tries to be decisive he is still entirely insecure in subconscious worry.

(I used this twice sorry)

He’s still caught in the hanged man’s noose so to say. Whereas the sun is a card of confidence and liberation. If Kaneki were to come home to a ruined Goat, be absolutely destroyed because Touka, Naki, Miza, Yomo and everybody he left behind died I hardly see him being able to finally reach that point of enlightenment.

The sun is something that comes after the darkest night though, which is something we have already seen happen.

Urie’s supposed final moments mirror Naki’s almost perfectly. We cut to his internal narration. He flashbacks about losing someone important, and thinks about how it’s fine if he died instead of the old man.

He gets one last burst of energy and it seems all for naught in the face of the obstacle of tragedy. Urie looked pretty much dead at this point, even when he miraculously recovered Furuta still had him cornered. He was only saved by the interference of a sun character.

Nagachika Hideyoshi, whose last appearance was in the star arc, the arc of temporary insight and encouragement. One where he appeared as an illusion in order to inspire Kaneki with a temporary moment of revelation. Hide is a thinker, and a plotter, somebody just like the clown’s who enjoys playing games of detective and using his mind. He’s an observant person and works perfectly as a character of insight.

So we have Naki too, in a cliffhanger that seems to be leading towards his own death.

If Tokyo Ghoul were a tragedy, it would be perfect for him to die here. After all Naki has not overcome his primary flaw, he has not been able to let go of Yamori’s death and considers dying in a stylish way like Urie, to be preferable than continuing to live on with out him.

He matches Urie’s own preference that Shirazu should have lived, and would have lived better than Urie himself would had he survived the Noro operation. It’s that kind of emotional attachment that gives but Shirazu and Urie the strength to face death.

Tokyo Ghoul is not a narrative of facing death though, it’s one of living. Just like Yomo who was comforted by his sister’s memories of living, right before facing death.

Was not allowed to die at the time, even though he looked similarly doomed. The point of these characters is not for them to die like dogs pointless, tragic, deaths no matter how much the narrative controlled by Furuta seems to suggest otherwise.

But rather to live, and find on the meaning to live. Hide even says so point blank.

You just haven’t found a good enough reason to live yet.

The Demian parallel in K’s Egg makes it clear though. To find the happiness, the reason to live, the new world, you have to destroy the old world. As touching as Naki’s monologue is, it’s also deeply troublesome.

Naki enjoys violence, he enjoys it because he associates it with his big bro. He thinks violence is what will please Yamori. Even though the reason Hoguro and Shousei follow Naki is not because of his violence or his strength, but rather his heart.

Therefore caught up in the image of his big bro, Naki does not realize his own self importance. This is something that has been built up about Naki for a long time, his very first scene in Re: Akira lectures him to something of that affect.

Naki believes there’s nothing for him and no reason for him to live without Jason in his life. Yamori is essentially his everything, In that moment he again is about to accept his own death.

However he is saved at the last moment because there are two people who because of the affection that Naki has shown them, believe his life is worth living still.

Naki does not realize that there is a happy future for him if he fights for it, thus he is content to simply die in style, in a way he can brag about to big bro. He in very simple forms, matches the trauma that both Furuta and Kaneki share.

There is heavy foreshadowing and thematic reason for why Naki might die. After all ghoul gangs, the kind of violence that Naki enjoys, are a symptom of the old world. In the world that exists for coexistence, the violent ghoul gangs would no longer belong. They would have no need to for one, and they would still be branded as outcasts and crimminals so Naki would never even have earned the safety of his white suit family that he worked so hard and so desperately to protect.

As Naki said, the white suits don’t need organizations. They scraped themselves up because they were created specifically by a need to survive in the violent environment. As long as the CCG continues to press down on ghouls short of wiping them all out, it’s likely more and more gangs were going to form, the dobers, the monkey and then the blades and the white suits.

Another strong parallel is that this chapter extremely closely parallels Foolish Death, to the point of even having a cliffhanger death. Miza unable to let go of her pride as an underground ghoul, fights the CCG officer to her apparent death.

One other thing is that this chapter firmly establishes that the reason the white suits follow Naki is that he’ll be able to carry on their memory long after they die. That is they follow Naki specifically because they want him to live.

Which heavily conflicts Naki’s own suicidal nature, of wanting to die in a cool way that he can brag about to big bro. If Naki were to die here, he’d be disappointing the one hope of his brothers Hoguro and Shousei placed on him, and he would also be dying as a part of the old world, unable to escape the confines of the white suit which is his everything.

The alternative however is of course, Naki realizing he has something outside of his ghoul gang.

Miza almost realizes this too, that the Blades were closed off from everybody and her love of Naki meant that they would be opening themselves up. For Naki and Miza whose entire lives have been dominated by their gang identity and their leadership of those gangs, their future path does not lie in staying with those gangs however, but with each other.

Children is something that has been brought up between Naki and Miza, not in one, but three omakes. Even one so recently as to refresh us of the idea.

Not only that but it heavily parallels Kaneki’s current reason to fight and move on, to create a world in which him and Touka are able to safely raise their child. What lies in the future for Naki is not to die like a dog, but realize there is still a future happiness that he can grasp.

That the entirety of his meaning is not in the past. That there still exists a future for him. Not only is he the one who carries the memories and feelings of all the white suits, but he also can carry his and Miza’s future together as a reason to live.

As he is now though, Naki is unaware of this choice. He is ignorant, in the darkest point of the night. The same way that Miza was mostly unaware of her feelings for Naki until right before her supposed death left her on a cliffhanger. The same way Yomo accepted his own death against Arima as long as Touka and Ayato could make it out.

The final point of comparison is how happy Naki seems right now. This is exactly what he thinks he wants. If thematically Tokyo Ghoul is arguing against suicide, then shouldn’t Naki be denied the happy death that he wants?

That is essentially the point of the sun arc. For these characters to realize, not their wants but the needs they need to account for to grow. The interference of the clowns to tell them is something that will help advance that front, as Urie would never have moved forward had Donato not explained it to him point blank.