You know I was looking at your snakes post, great job btw, and I noticed in the last panel with eto and kanae that she mentions her God is a kid with an absurd amount of power. It could be just me, but maybe she's referring to haineki?

Yeah! That description fits Haineki. I think she is also talking about herself too, I mean, I think it is both things.

Psychological projection, is a theory in which humans defend themselves against their own unpleasant impulses, by denying their existence while attributing them to others. Eto is connecting to Kaneki this way as a mechanism, in a way I’ll explain under the cut.

Eto, herself displays many childish traits. Mainly reserved for her Takatsuki Sen persona which could arguably be a part of the mask she wears as to not around suspicion, such as being late to her own booksigning, being overly intrigued and talkative while having litte sense of personal space or boundaries (she asks Hinami point blank what’s wrong with her brother then tells her flatly that she has to suffer to be able to understand him, this was probably Eto’s manipulation too, but it’s also completely lacking in tact). Those are eccentricities anybody would expect an eccentric recluse author to have, but at the same time lack of structure of time and inability to socialize clearly are childish traits that manifest in adults if they have an improper upbringing.

She also displays childish traits in her ghoul Persona of Eto. She kicks her feet in the wind, and generally tends to skip around when she moves.

She’s also able to communicate with Naki, somebody usually equal parts childish and incomprehensible to the other members of Aogiri.

She also shows the same ability to relate thirteen year old Hinami.

While part of this must be an act or intentional on her part, and Eto is being especially manipulative in the Hinami scene, I still think this must come from a genuine place.

There’s also Yoshimura’s habit of referring to her indirectly as “my child” or “a child who grew up hating the world”, which gives connotation to the kind of person her upbringing resulted in. She looks physically tiny and is mistaken as a child often, too.

Before I can explain that, we have to see how those traits also manifest in Haiseneki.

Haise has a tendency to pretend to be naive, to blow things off with puns, jokes, and his innocent expressions. He does this because his actual confrontational skills are terrible.

Haise also has a subconscious need to create a family.

And a need of near constant validation from this family. The reason why this collection of traits that appears in both Haise and Eto are termed childish is not because of any innocence, but rather the fact that they display these traits means they are lacking something as fully functional adults.

The reason they are both lacking as fully functional adults is because they both

endured abuse in their formative years.

Both Yoshimura and Kaneki’s mom are abusive figures, but what makes their abuse more complicated than the other abusive figures we see in the story is that they were most likely at the same time loving and caring, but stressed by circumstances. Yoshimura refers to his child as his last hope, he creates Anteiku and reforms his entire life, and waits for her for twenty four years. He marched to his own death, just so V would not get a lead on his child. His great gesture of love though, was also an abusive one as he deeply neglected and abandoned his child to the point where they turned into the mess that Eto is today. They knew the owl was out there for 14 years, but never once sought her out even after they fell out of V’s radar, even though they knew the Owl was probably in desperate need of somebody to love them. They chose to love from afar, instead of taking the risk of getting close. This was an abusive choice on their part, regardless of extenuating circumstance.

The same with Kaneki’s mother, who worked herself to death for everybody around her out of love. Even to her sister who never would appreciate her efforts. However she chose too, to do this great act of love at Kaneki’s expense. Kaneki, who was in a position of power below her, was ignored, and told not to want for anything.

Then Eto grew up thinking all love was selfish and twisted.

Then Kaneki grew up thinking all love was conditional, that he had to work for it at his expense instead of ask from others.

She truly loved me, Only she didn’t know how to love. What a stupid God.

Most interpret Kaneki as talking about his mother here, in the poem that Ishida posted but if you’ll notice in the update the one strangling Kaneki’s child projection is Kaneki himself. Kaneki also self admittedly inherited his mother’s traits in the worst ways. This phrase points to then Kaneki, and by extension Eto having a critical misunderstanding of the way love works, because of the abusive love they both received growing up. They’re both stupid gods.

Then the ultimate question is what is the difference between them?

As pointed out by oneeyedkingeto they both project in opposite directions. Eto projects outwards to solve her dilemna of love. She has decided in her mind that all love is selfish and twisted in some way and will eventually become undone. Then she acts this viewpoint out onto others, who are really just proxies of herself.

She mocks Kuro and Shiro (orphans like her, half ghouls like her) for finding a father figure after their original parents die (because she doesn’t need one). She even twists the words that were repeated by her mother and father often “It must have been hard” saying that it’s a manipulative phrase and the easiest way to make somebody else love you.

She flat out tells Hinami (an orphan who lost her mother) that her attempts to connect to her surrogate family won’t work (because people can’t truly understand each other), unless she suffers the same pain.

Then she twists Kanae (An Orphan) into thinking exactly the way she would think, that his love that was actually a mix of selflessness and selfishness, had only been a selfish all along. (Which better fits her world view).

Notice how she focuses on on Kanae’s envy of others as well. Not a of details are given about certain characters in Tokyo Ghoul, but there exists parallels and foils to fill the gap. She calls Kaneki taking Shuu’s attention away from him (who Kanae has fixated upon as his source of love in place of his dead family) “not fun”. It’s a childish way to put it, but it also implies that Shuu has only a limited amount of love to divide up.

Which makes sense if you realize both Kaneki and Eto had parental figures, who seemed (from their perspective at least) to love everybody but them. Tokyo Ghoul is genius in highlighting that no matter what external circumstances drive it, abuse is always a choice. Which is why I wonder at any point if Eto ever asked herself

However, unchosen as she was her attitude towards love now is to childishly deem it as unnecessary. She’s using projection as a coping mechanism outwardly, to continue to deny her own yearning or love. She sets up these facsimiles of herself (orphaned half ghouls, orphaned ghouls, all wanting love) and she tears them completely apart to prove to herself how weak they were for wanting love and how much better she is off without it. She’s lashing out, just as a child would. Haise even says as much that she repeats this behavior in her books.

The way Kaneki differs with the same denial and projection is internal. He reads those same bloodbath book and relates his internal pain them them.

First Rize who was his ghoul nature

Then centipede, who was his past deeds

Haise alwasy maintains these carefully compartmentalized projections that are parts of himself, facsimiles even with exaggerated parts of his personality, but he’s always quick to deny that they are him.

The flaws he doesn’t want to face he projects onto his hallucinations, all the while claiming they could never be him. He’s waffling, refusing to take responsibility for his actions like a child would.

Therefore it’s fitting that his latest projection would be a child itself:

Haise and Eto both wield and unbelievable amount of power. They are also both unique in their existence and lonely. They’re in a position to affect great change in the world, but because of their personality defects it becomes twisted.

Haise in particular, working in the CCG refuses to question everything that is wrong about his situation because it would mean facing harsher truths. His only recourse at this point is complete passivity, almost letting life pass him by like a dream.

From Eto’s viewpoint then, Haise must really seem like a childish god for letting all of that potential and power go to waste, because he’s too preoccupied by things like personal happiness and loved ones.