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linkspooky · 2 years

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Megumi’s Shadow

There’s something cathartic about watching Megumi simply overpower his way through an ambush, especially since he is a character who before this has always held back his strength. However, if you haven’t noticed it a lot of the things Megumi has said and done so far this arc had big red warning flags reading “DANGER, DANGER” attached to it. The killing game itself has been a bad influence on Megumi so far, and it’s probably only going to get worse from here. More under the Cut.

1. The Brighter the Light the Longer the Shadow

Jujutsu Kaisen itself uses a lot of Jungian ideas as the basis of its worldbuilding, curses come from repressed human feelings that leak out of their minds and become sentient. However, Megumi is perhaps the most Jungian character, in the Jungian manga, about Jungian ideas. What I mean to say is Jung splits the mind between the conscious self which is what we see on the surface, and the repressed shadow self which is everything else about ourselves which we do not acknowledge / are not aware of the repressed, instinctual, animalistic side.

Megumi’s cursed technique is quite literally, summoning animals and storing things (including himself now) inside of his shadow. There is a lot of Jungian symbolism used by his character. For example, on the Moon Tarot Card there is an image A dog and a wolf stand in the grassy field, howling at the moon, representing both the tamed and the wild aspects of our minds. The domesticated dog is the stand in for the conscious mind, the wild animal wolf the unconscious. Megumi’s very first shikigami is a pair of two dogs. After one dies, they take on a much more feral wolf form.

Megumi is someone much like the domesticated dog, and the wild wolf split very much down the middle, with an unacknowledged dark side.

What is Megumi’s dark side? That he is like his father, and like Gojo to an extent. This, mirrors this. SOURCE HERE: [x]

He has become a mindless puppet of carnage, bearing his fangs at the strongest around.

When Toji was resurrected as a zombie, he became quite a literal shadow of himself, instead of the human being we know, he attacked everything around him like an animal. Once again, the symbolism of domesticated / wild imagery repeats itself.

However, the Megumi and Toji parallels aren’t simply “Megumi is like his father because they both have an extreme violent side”. I think a lot of fandom misconception about Toji is that he’s simply a guy who is strong, because a lot of characters only remember Toji for his strength therefore objectifying him. Toji is one of the most complex and flawed characters in the manga, but one of his main character traits is how downright cruel he is. Toji wasn’t just a paid assassin doing a job. He wasn’t just making mnoey to get buy and send support for his son. This is intentionally shown on Gege’s part when he partners Toji up with someone whose more businesslike even though he’s doing dirty business. Toji is someone who went out of his way to be as cruel and callous as possible towards others, as a way of hiding his more vulnerable self.

Toji forgetting Megumi, or at least pretending to forget is such an important character moment, because we as an aduience later know how much Toji loved Megumi and put importance on him. However, how Toji loved Megumi and how he treated Megumi are two different things, because Toji deliberately chose to be cruel and distant because he didn’t believe he was capable of being any better of a father to Megumi after his wife died. Toji is someone who deliberately chooses to be the worst version of himself. He makes money and instead of sending it home, he blows it all off on the race track. He’s not doing this job out of necessity, but to prove himself stronger than the sorcerers.

The reason Toji’s actions are still felt to the plot this day, is because Toji was deliberately contining the cycle of abuse that was heaped on him as a kid. That’s what is tragic about his character, because we know Toji is someone capable of love and softness, and he deliberately chose to harden himself enough to hurt others. Because that’s what he thought strength was.

The cycle of abuse is like that it cycles. Toji’s choices have lasting effects to this day. It was one of the reasons Geto went off the rails. It especially effected his son Megumi. Toji wanted his son Megumi to have a life better than him, that is true, but Megumi ended up living life in a pretty similiar way and inheriting the same flaws. Megumi is pretty much at risk for becoming Toji the same way Maki once was.

Even though Megumi seems the complete opposite of Toji on the surface, at the core their pretty similiar. Toji’s issue comes from never having a home or ever being shown any kind of unconditional love in his life, and only ever being objectified by those around him. He was treated as an object for being the only Zenin born without cursed energy. Now Megumi, inheriting the strongest curse technique in the Zenin family has lived a very similiar life. He was abandoned and never had a stable home for most of his life. When Gojo found him he brought some stability yes, but also Gojo very clearly intended to use Megumi because he had a strong cursed technique. Ask yourself this if Megumi had been a normal kid, would Gojo have even bothered to help? Megumi gets help from Gojo and it’s a very conditional kind of help, on the condition of that he grows up to be a sorcerer and risk his life for complete strangers.

Megumi has this insane amount of responsiblity thurst on his shoulders when he’s like five and never had parents or a stable home, so his response is to repress himself. If Megumi thinks about how unfair the circumstances of his life are or how angry it makes him for more than ten seconds it’ll break him, so Megumi just doesn’t think.

The light novels are actually a pretty excellent resource for characterization, because the first story entirely written from Megumi’s perspective, features extremely dry prose, written as mechanically as possible, that just sounds exhausted (this is a compliment) and includes this bit.

However, his eyes that were as deep as the night that peeped out from the bottom of a deep ditch became even more lifeless.

Fushiguro tried once more to switch off his self-awareness.

Numbness was the safety feature of life. If he did not think of a way to protect his spirit, it would not be strange if a curse was born.

Fushiguro was a sharp contrast from Itadori who was in high spirits and was restlessly excited.

If Toji presents himself like the wild wolf, then Megumi presents himself like the domesticated dog. Megumi wants to pretend to be in control of his life, so he’s obedient, acts in control of his emotions, by numbing himself all the time. That’s why Megumi’s middle school backstory is so important, he’s almost nothing like his high school personality where he just seems like an emotionally withdrawn introvert, he was considered a hooligan always getting into fights. Megumi’s middle school flashback is also a good way to explain Megumi’s logic behind how he acts.

“Do not kill me, and I will not kill you” is Megumi’s guiding principle. Megumi believes in fairness and justice and that it’s something you have to create in the world with your hbeavior. Therefore, Megumi believes each time he lashes out with violence, he’s only doing it in retaliation. Megumi’s guiding philosophy is that he’ll leave others alone if they leave him alone. He is willing to become violent, but only ever in reaction to, and at that point it’s fair because he was provoked. Megumi believes because he chooses when to be violent, the same way he chooses when to save people, that he’s in control of himself and therefore better. Because what Megumi hates is people who walk around without self awareness.

Of course judging for yourself what’s good and what’s bad is, basically... what you’re supposed to do but it’s important to remember Megumi’s ideals of good and bad are black and white. Megumi’s greatest character trait is his childishness. He surprises people at times how immature, and also pure he can be, because he’s always acting far older than his age. However, his ideas of good and evil are extremely simplistic, not only that Megumi just doesn’t plain listen to other people at all when they try to explain circumstances. Megumi is notably unempathic to Noritoshi Kamo Jr. whose led a very similiar life to him.

What’s interesting is that Kamo actually had a correct reasoning when he decided to try to kill Itadori Yuji in the Kyoto and Tokyo event. Kamo Jr. was listening to the clan heads yes, but he also said he believed that Yuji was too dangerous like a bomb waiting to go off, and... he was right. Yuji did in fact detonate and cause a massacre. Despite Noritoshi Kamo Jr. seeming like the more cruel one for being willing to sacrifice one person to negate the dangers towards thousands, and Megumi wanting to protect his friend and save “a good person” the situation turned out to be more complicated than that.

Megumi doesn’t really want to live in a complicated reality because it’s too much for him, so he clings to simple ideas of good and evil. In fairness to Megumi though, he doesn’t particularly see himself as a good person. He admits that he’s selfish, and only picks and chooses between people. Megumi acknowledged beforehand that going into the killing game he had no qualms with killing people to rack up 100 points.

However, just being self aware doesn’t make it okay. Toji was also, a very intensely self aware person who knew he was doing the wrong thing... but that didn’t stop him from doing it.

Megumi is interesting foils with Higuruma someone who also just like Megumi, tries to uphold higher principals of justice to make the world a fairer place. However, where they differ is their attitudes towards murder and also other people. Megumi looks down on weak people, because he doesn’t want to be weak. Megumi believes, and has been taught (hi Gojo), that the way to be in control of his life is to live up to his full potential of a sorcerer, and therefore he’ll never endure the out of control circumstances of his childhood again. Megumi looks down on someone like Remi for... panicking in a life or death situation. You know something most human beings would do.

Megumi acts like a prosecutor wanting to hand out punishment to make the world a fairer place, punishing those who trasngress a boundary and provoke them. However, Higuruma wants to make the world a fairer place by making sure the law works properly and defending those on the bad side of the law. Higuruma wants to find value in human weakness and ugliness because it is human.

Higuruma lashes out and kills someone, and even though the judge and prosecutor were committing a crime in his eyes, he felt awful for killing them. It’s important to note these chapters happen one right after another. Higuruma talks about how awful killing other people feels even if you have a reason for it at the time. The next chapter, Megumi kills someone without even feeling a little bit remorseful.

It’s not really the fact that Megumi killed someone, but his entire attitude towards it. Remember, Megumi didn’t have to kill someone here. This is after the rule is instated that you don’t have to kill people for points. He could have threatened him for points. He could have left him there because he was already down.

I define a cold blooded killing, as killing someone when they are either incapable of fighting back, or going out of your way to kill someone for no other reason. Megumi had a reason when he was fighting back midair, but the moment he chose to kill someone is important, because the man was already down and unconscious, and Megumi executed him in a brutal manner while also narrating about how this action was just waving away sparks.

Jujutsu Kaisen isn’t just any battle manga, it takes a lot of time to etablish the fact that the decision to kill someone matters because life has value. Remember how broken up Nanami was about having to mercy kill the people that Mahito forcibly mutated into horrible monsters? Remember, how even though there wasn’t any other option, having to kill someone in that manner was painted as a harrowing thing. Life has value, even the life of a person that Megumi doesn’t like / views as trash. If everyone is fighting for survival what makes Megumi’s fight for survival so much more important than others? He’s not the protagonist of reality. Yuji went out of his way to kill someone as well. When Kechizu and Eso were fleeing from Yuji and Nobara, they went out of their way to hunt them down and kill them in cold blood and... they both turned out to be Yuji’s brother.

They were, just like Yuji, victims and experiments of Noritoshi Kamo who had been manipulated. If Yuji had chosen a less violent option, Yuji could have gotten to known his brothers, and Choso might have had less reasons to kill people in the subway during the Shibuya incident. Yuji went out of his way to kill them, that was an action that had consequences and mattered.

This entire dialogue isnt’ to say that Megumi is a bad person though, it’s just he’s unaware of his darker side. Yes, Megumi does go in noticing that he’s perfectly willing to kill people to earn points even if they are just people trying to survive. However, the problem is Megumi thinks this attitude is okay. Megumi doesn’t consider himself a good person, but at the same time he thinks if his actions can save people that are close to him it doesn’t matter.

Megumi puts people like Yuji and Tsumiki on a pedestal as “Good People”. While Megumi doesn’t consider himself a good person, he considers his actions in service to those good people. However, one Yuji is just as capable of hurting people as any bad person. As evidenced by the fact that he’s you know a mass murderer. And two it’s not really taking the wants of Tsumiki and Yuji into consideration. Tsumiki never wanted Megumi to get into fights and hurt people because she cared about Megumi as a person. Yuji cares just as much about protecting Megumi as Megumi does about protecting him. So, we have Megumi going out of his way to do very dark and violent things, and saying it’s for both Tsumiki and Yuji’s sake, even though neither of him would want them to do these things.

Then, why is he doing them?

It’s because Megumi’s trauma has made him into a violent and unstable person just like his father. There’s no such thing as a trauma that doesn’t negatively effect people, and there’s no being stronger than your trauma. Megumi could, like HIguruma, and like Yuji, live with the knowledge that there’s a part of him that’s violent and wants to hurt people. There’s a wolf inside of him even though he pretends at all times to be a domesticated dog that would never bite others without a reason. However, he doesn’t want to live with the responsibility of that. He represses himself instead, over and over again, and his shadow grows darker and deeper.

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