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snowshinobi · 2 years

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Me? Having intense feelings about Rengoku Kyojuro? Yeah you got me

[content warning: Demon Slayer spoilers up through the Mugen Train arc (season 2), descriptions of emotional abuse, death, (roundabout) suicide]

so here’s my deal with Rengoku. It’s made clear in the show that his dad did not step up to the plate. He verbally abused Rengoku. His time as a hashira meant he spent far more time defending people against demons than he spent being with his family. After his retirement, his listless parenting forced Rengoku to be both and older brother and a surrogate father for his younger sibling. Rengoku’s respect for his father is clouded for good reason. Rengoku’s respect for his father’s high-octane career, on the other hand, is pure and absolute.

That, too, is an outgrowth of Rengoku’s emotionally abusive childhood.

The hashira are the most skilled demon slayers. Their extraordinary power matches the extraordinary scope of their mission: defend humanity against demons. Not just individual people, as lower ranking demon slayers are assigned to do. The hashira have fought for and continue to fight for everybody. They fight for humanity itself.

Rengoku’s post-punch flashback shows him as a young boy, maybe 6 years old. His mother, deathly ill, looks him right in eye and gravely tells him the immense power he was born with must be used to “protect the weak.” Not weaker classmates or neighbor kids. THE weak: anyone who requires aid from “the strong,” a small group of which Rengoku is part. His mother embraces him, he clings back, and they both cry.

That. Is far, far too much to put on a child’s shoulders. Dropping expectations that heavy on one person—especially a child—is, if not outright abuse, very close to it.

Fast forward to Rengoku, the flame hashira, following in his father’s complicated footsteps. When you’re a hashira, almost every other human is less powerful than you. “The weak” includes any and every other person you run into. That means any and everyone else’s needs must be put before Rengoku’s. It’s his duty to prioritize things this way. That’s what Rengoku has been raised to believe.

Never, not fucking once, does this guy put himself first. Never. The first thing Rengoku says after receiving a fatal blow is a gentle reminder to Tanjiro; Rengoku tells him stay still so Tanjiro’s gut wound doesn’t reopen.

Rengoku threw himself in front of the train cars full of defenseless humans because it is the right thing to do, but it’s far simpler than that. Rengoku does not have a choice here. He must protect these humans because that is his purpose. He is strong, they are not. Their lives are vulnerable and precious, so he must protect them at all costs. Even if that cost is his own precious and vulnerable life. Rengoku’s calculus is not utilitarian is what I’m saying. He’s not weighing a couple hundred human lives against his own and deciding that one life lost is better than hundreds. Rengoku would fight to the death to save one human. He would fight to the death to save the idea of humanity. He would fight to the death for a pyrrhic victory.

Rengoku’s death is a tragedy of ancient Greek proportions, as catastrophic as a tsunami and riddled with infinite aftershocks. Rengoku urges Tanjiro to pursue a hashira career. He urges Tanjiro to become him. Strip the meaning from your own life, willingly, in order to prioritize the lives of every other human in the world.

Tanjiro has one hell of a task ahead of him. Tanjiro’s dedication to his demon sister—who, according to the order of demon slayers, ought to be slain for the greater good—is the reason he’s training to slay demons at all. He wants to find a cure that will restore Nezuko’s humanity. I posit that this “cure” must also restore the hashira’s humanity.

The only way Tanjiro can reconcile his love for his demon sister and his passion for helping everyone he meets is to challenge the suicidal self-sacrifice built into the entire system of demon slaying. A truly just society cannot be built on the dehumanization of those seen as “other,” both in extremely negative and extremely positive ways: demons and hashira. The logic that labels Nezuko as dangerous and killable because purely she’s a demon—ignoring her peaceful track record—is the same contradictory logic that convinced Rengoku that he can and should gamble with his life in order to ensure the safety of other’s lives.

If you are extremely powerful or extremely dangerous, you need to (be willing to) die. So says the status quo. We, along with Tanjiro, watch Rengoku follow this idea to its gut wrenching conclusion. I think we’re gonna watch Tanjiro sever it. And I bet the water form he uses to do that will be awesome.

#snowswords #demon slayer spoilers #demon slayer #rengoku #rengoku kyojuro #what i didn't manage to get in there is that i was born and raised in america #so my feelings about individual value is deeply rooted in. well. my american background.#being half Japanese i can tell you I've personally experienced the way many Japanese folks prioritize #group harmony over individuals speaking out.#i find that trade off to be ... honestly? deeply toxic. but that's my perspective. I don't think there is a right answer here.#i just know i feel so so angry at and for Rengoku. this is why.#analysis #did i cry writing this? maybe. yeah a little ...#so far I've only seen the show (through to the last episode of the Mugen train arc) but i don't mind spoilers #feel free to chime in with manga content or future show content that complicates my post!#also also rengoku's character design fucks so much and i love looking at him #i will miss you my guy. god. you deserved so much better. im so sorry. im so angry at you #how could you suffer the way you did and then ask tanjiro (your STUDENT) to carry on your legacy #i mean of course i see how you could do that ... *gestures to post* but! i don't like it. makes me so fuckin sad #when rengoku gently tells tanjiro to stay still so his wound heals ... the horrible laugh-yell i yelled ...#pain. pain pain pain pain pain #add rengoku to the list of digital men who are in desperate need of a hug. also therapy but hug first #also wild coincidence (and spoiler for the Naruto series) but yknow who else had abusive parents who devalued their worth?#who also believed it was their duty to die for the greater good?#who also went out on a fatal stab wound? Neji fucking Hyuuga.#i cannot believe. two digital men have been taken from me in such a fashion. pain.#snowfire #Kyojuro analysis

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